FRQ #2 Workshop
FRQ 2 Boot Camp
Presented by Social Studies Lab & Roger the GoPoPup
FRQ 2 Boot Camp: Crack the Chart
Roger the GoPoPup, Beagle in Chief of Social Studies Lab, is here to walk you through FRQ 2.
FRQ 2 is the Quantitative Analysis question on the AP Government and Politics exam. It hands you a chart, a graph, or a table and asks four short questions about it. There is no essay. There is no thesis. There is no reason to panic.
In this workshop you will:
- Learn the Task Verbs that tell you how to answer each part
- Walk through a full practice FRQ 2, part by part
- Build your own scoring guidelines and grade real-sounding student samples
- Take a short quiz and, if you pass, download your Certificate of FRQ 2 Training
Use the speaker icon up top to toggle sound, and the fullscreen icon to go big screen. Ready?
Relax, This Is Not An Essay
First things first: you are going to slay this Free Response Question. It is easy, not essay. An FRQ is really not that bad.
You are NOT writing an essay. There is no thesis, no introduction, no conclusion, and no need to freak. Put all your essay anxiety away and get ready to FRQ it.
Straight from the College Board Course and Exam Description: FRQ 2, Quantitative Analysis, is worth 4 points, has a recommended time of about 20 minutes, and counts for roughly 12.5 percent of your total exam score. It sits between the Concept Application question and the SCOTUS Comparison question in the free response section.
Every FRQ 2 begins with a visual, such as a chart, table, or infographic, followed by four questions about that visual. Each part is always worth one point. You will answer in this format:
A. Worth 1 point
B. Worth 1 point
C. Worth 1 point
D. Worth 1 point
Label each part of your answer A, B, C, and D, right on your answer. That is it.
A. Identify or describe a specific piece of data shown in the visual.
B. Describe a pattern, trend, or difference in the data.
C. Draw a conclusion based on that pattern.
D. Explain how the data relates to a political principle, institution, process, policy, or behavior.
That sequence, read the data, describe it, conclude something from it, then connect it to real GoPo content, is the same order every single year. Learn the pattern once and you can handle any visual they throw at you.
Task Verbs: How Much Should You Write?
Each part of FRQ 2 is built around a Task Verb, a key word that tells you both how to write and how much to write. The Task Verbs that show up over and over in FRQ 2 are:
Identify and Describe — Easy Key Words. Rule of thumb: 2 sentences max.
Compare — Moderate Key Word. First describe two things, then compare them. Rule of thumb: 3 sentences max.
Explain and Draw a Conclusion — Harder Key Words. These need you to build a bridge between two ideas and solve for why. Rule of thumb: 4 sentences max.
Whenever you explain something or draw a conclusion, link your two ideas with the word because. That one word does most of the heavy lifting on FRQ 2.
Quick Progress Check
Read With Your Hands
Before you answer anything, take a moment to read the visual with your hands. Glance over it and mark it up: underline the title, circle the source, box off groups that belong together, sketch a quick trendline. This is not art class, it just helps patterns jump out at you.
Here is the visual we will use for our first walkthrough. AP Gov visuals are almost always a real chart or table built from real-world data, so lets use one that looks and reads like the real thing.
| Congress | Years | Government Control | Substantive Laws Enacted |
|---|---|---|---|
| 101st | 1989-1991 | Divided | 410 |
| 107th | 2001-2003 | Divided* | 294 |
| 112th | 2011-2013 | Divided | 208 |
| 113th | 2013-2015 | Divided | 212 |
| 114th | 2015-2017 | Divided | 234 |
| 115th | 2017-2019 | Unified | 305 |
*The 107th Congress began under unified Republican control; the Senate flipped to Democratic control in mid-2001. Source: Pew Research Center analysis of congressional productivity. Figures for the 101st, 114th, and 115th Congresses are approximated from Pews reported percentages.
Now write down the What, in one or two plain sentences. Then spitball the Why and the So What before you even look at the questions.
What? This chart shows how many substantive public laws Congress enacted, Congress by Congress, from 1989 to 2019. The number dropped by close to half from the 101st Congress to the 112th and 113th Congresses, then partly recovered by the 115th Congress.
Why? Some of these Congresses had one party controlling the presidency and Congress. Others had divided government, where the opposing party controlled at least one house.
So What? Whether government is divided or unified may affect how much gets done. Gridlock is not just a talking point, it shows up in the data.
Also worth noting what the visual does NOT tell you: it only shows six of the many Congresses since 1989, and it does not tell you which specific laws were enacted or how important each one was.
A Is For Answer It Is Right There
In Part A you almost never need outside GoPo knowledge. You just need to read the visual carefully.
A. Identify the number of substantive public laws enacted by the 107th Congress.
Scan the chart or table for the bar or row labeled 107th Congress. Read the number straight off it.
Describe A Pattern, Keep It Simple
B. Describe a change in the number of substantive public laws enacted between 1989 and 2019.
Look across the whole chart. Does the number go up, down, or bounce around? Is there a rough overall direction even with some exceptions?
Follow this acronym: K.I.S.S. Keep It Simple, Student. Do not get fancy. Just describe a clear pattern using the exact wording of the question.
Now Bring In Your GoPo Brain
New Task Verb alert. For Draw a Conclusion, you go beyond the visual and use what is in your head.
C. Draw a conclusion about divided government and the amount of laws enacted as illustrated in the chart.
That basically means: remember your answer for Part B? Now explain why it is that way. Link the pattern to a reason with the word because. Notice that every one of the lowest bars, the 112th, 113th, and 114th Congresses, had divided government, while the 115th Congress, the only unified government shown, produced far more laws.
Explain: Build The Bridge
D. Explain how the lawmaking process can impact the number of laws enacted by Congress.
Explain questions want a mechanism, the HOW, not just a claim that something is possible. Name a real strategy, then connect it to a motive with the word because.
Now Lets Look At Some Student Samples
Here is how real scoring works. Apply the scoring guidelines below and see how each sample earns its points.
Sample 2A — Score: 4
A. The 107th Congress enacted 294 substantive public laws. B. Between 1989 and 2019, the number of substantive laws enacted by Congress dropped by almost half, falling from 410 in the 101st Congress to around 210 in the 112th and 113th Congresses, before partly recovering by the 115th Congress. C. Divided government occurs when one or more houses of Congress are controlled by the party opposite the president. Divided government tends to produce fewer laws because the opposing party can block the presidents agenda, and the chart shows the lowest law counts all came from divided Congresses while the one unified Congress shown produced far more. D. The lawmaking process has many veto points, such as committee votes, conference committees, and the Senate filibuster, where a bill can be killed, so it is very difficult for a bill to survive the whole process and become law, which keeps the total number of laws enacted low.
Why it earned all 4: Correct number, an accurate and specific pattern, a real conclusion that defines the term and ties it to the data with because, and an explanation with an actual mechanism.
Sample 2B — Score: 2
A. 294 laws. B. The number of laws passed by Congress went down over time. C. Divided government means one party controls the presidency and another party controls Congress. D. The lawmaking process affects how many laws are passed.
Why it earned only 2: A and B are correct. C only defines divided government without drawing a conclusion that links it to the pattern in the chart, so no point. D claims a connection exists but never explains a mechanism, so no point.
Sample 2C — Score: 1
A. 294. B. The number of laws passed by Congress increased between 1989 and 2019. C. Divided government is when the same party controls both branches. D. Laws are hard to pass.
Why it earned only 1: A is correct. B has the trend backwards, so no point. C gets the definition of divided government backwards. D never explains a mechanism.
GoPoPro Tip Take-Aways
- Do not rush
- Plan and organize extensively
- Write all over that test page
- When you explain, close the loop, build the bridge, and solve for why
- Do not write an essay. No introduction, thesis, or conclusion
- Get to the point
- Give examples when you can
Quick Progress Check
Practice FRQ 2: Voter ID Laws
Time to fly solo. Read the visual, then jot down short answers below. No need for full paragraphs.
| State | Legislature Control | Year | Strictness Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| Georgia | Republican | 2011 | 9 |
| Georgia | Republican | 2021 | 10 |
| Vermont | Democratic | 2013 | 2 |
| Vermont | Democratic | 2022 | 1 |
| Wisconsin | Republican | 2012 | 7 |
| Wisconsin | Republican | 2019 | 8 |
| Illinois | Democratic | 2015 | 3 |
| Illinois | Democratic | 2023 | 2 |
| Arizona | Republican | 2010 | 6 |
| Arizona | Republican | 2024 | 9 |
Note: which party controlled each legislature is accurate to real elections. The strictness scores are illustrative figures built for this practice exercise, not an official rating from any organization.
A. Identify the state with the strictest voter ID law.
B. Describe a pattern in voter ID law strictness based on which party controls the state legislature.
C. Draw a conclusion about political parties and voter ID law strictness shown in the chart.
D. Explain how interest groups can influence state legislators decisions about voter ID laws.
Score These Samples Yourself
Put on your scorer hat. Read each student sample, apply the scoring guidelines from the last screen, and pick a score from 0 to 4. Get within one point of the actual score on all three and you unlock a big step toward your certificate.
Sample P1
A. Georgia has the strictest voter ID law. B. States with Republican controlled legislatures have stricter voter ID laws than states with Democratic controlled legislatures. C. Republican legislators pass stricter laws because they say it stops voter fraud, while Democratic legislators keep laws looser because strict ID rules can lower turnout among voters who tend to support Democrats. D. Interest groups can influence legislators by lobbying and threatening to fund an opponent in the next election, because legislators who want to keep their seats respond to groups that can help or hurt their reelection chances.
Sample P2
A. Georgia. B. Republican states have stricter voter ID laws. C. Both parties want fair elections. D. Interest groups lobby state legislators about voter ID laws.
Sample P3
A. Georgia. B. Democratic states have the strictest voter ID laws. C. Voter ID laws do not matter much. D. Interest groups are not very powerful in state politics.
FRQ 2 Knowledge Quiz
Ten questions. Score at least 70 percent to unlock your certificate.
Your Results
Want more GoPo goodness? Visit socialstudieslab.org for the full AP Government and Politics curriculum, free resources, and a daily AP Gov visual lesson.
