Advanced Placement (AP) Human Geography (also known as AP Human Geo, AP Geography, APHG, AP HuGe, APHuG, AP Human, HuGS, AP HuGo, or HGAP, or APHUGO) is an
Advanced Placement
Advanced Placement (AP) is a program in the United States and Canada created by the College Board. AP offers undergraduate university-level curricula and examinations to high school students. Colleges and universities in the US and elsewhere ...
social studies course in
human geography
Human geography or anthropogeography is the branch of geography which studies spatial relationships between human communities, cultures, economies, and their interactions with the environment, examples of which include urban sprawl and urban ...
for high school, usually freshmen students in the US, culminating in an exam administered by the
College Board
The College Board, styled as CollegeBoard, is an American not-for-profit organization that was formed in December 1899 as the College Entrance Examination Board (CEEB) to expand access to higher education. While the College Board is not an asso ...
.
The course introduces students to the systematic study of patterns and processes that have shaped human understanding, use, and alteration of
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...
's surface. Students employ spatial concepts and landscape analyses to analyze human social organization and its environmental consequences while also learning about the methods and tools geographers use in their science and practice.
Exam
The AP Human Geography Exam consists of two sections. The first section consists of 60
multiple choice
Multiple choice (MC), objective response or MCQ (for multiple choice question) is a form of an objective assessment in which respondents are asked to select only the correct answer from the choices offered as a list. The multiple choice format i ...
questions and the second section consists of 3
free-response questions, the first with no stimulus, the second with one stimulus, and the third with two stimuli. To receive full points, students must interpret the stimuli, if included with the question. Common stimuli are data, images, or maps. The sections are 60 and 75 minutes long, respectively. It is not necessary to answer the free-response questions in essay form; instead, points are awarded for keywords, examples, and other responses. As of May 2025, the AP Human Geography Exam will be online.
Curriculum and Course Outline
The curriculum consists of informational book-related homework, which often requires students to strive to learn information independently. The curriculum teaches about diffusion, human traits, religion, and population clusters.
The topics covered by the exam are as follows:
AP Human Geography:
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Course Outline
Grade distribution
The exam was first held in 2001. Grade distributions for the Human Geography scores since 2002 were:
References
{{College Board
Secondary education in the United States
High school course levels
Human geography
Geography education in the United States
Advanced Placement