You can submit an answer using the "Questions" e-mail link at the What You Need to Know web site. (Look in the lower, right-hand section of that page.)
If you submit the earliest best answer, I'll post your answer (without your name) and a critique here. It will be in the "Comments" section for that question.
Here's Question No. 14 (It's a Short-Answer Concepts question.):
What is a material manifestation of political culture in the UK?
What effect does it have on the political culture?
What is an immaterial manifestation of political culture in the UK?
What effect does it have on the political culture? (4 point question)
(See pp. 51-58 in What You Need to Know.)
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3 comments:
Here's a response to FRQ No. 14. My critique is much longer than the response. I mean it to demonstrate how complex seemingly simple questions can be.
My commentary is so long, I had to divide it into more than one comment.
The question and the response are in bold face below. My commentary is in italics.
The response to the first part of this question #14 startled me. My mental rubric included material things like a flag, a parliament building, a parliament, courts, etc. I had to rewrite my mental rubric after I read this response. That's something that doesn't happen during an AP reading. By the time of the reading, many people have been involved in writing a rubric (the list of acceptable answers) and the officials writing the rubric have read a sample of the answers. The rubric that the readers are presented with when they begin reading (grading) the exam questions is final. Luckily, that wasn't the case here, because when I thought about it material parts of a political culture would have to include things like political parties, ethnic groups, and even groups of like-minded religious believers.
Here's Question No. 14 (It's a Short-Answer Concepts question.): What is a material manifestation of political culture in the UK?
What effect does it have on the political culture?
What is an immaterial manifestation of political culture in the UK?
What effect does it have on the political culture? (4 point question)
The response:
"The UK has a variety of ethnic groups."
This is then, a material manifestation of a political culture. (That's one point.)
"This factor affects the political culture because it gives rights to Scotland, Northern Ireland, and other states in the UK. This helps practice devolution."
Well, the existence of these nations (a better term for the UK than ethnic groups, even though ethnic groups is accurate), doesn't "give rights" to any of the groups. Their existence is part of the political culture. Their existence affects the political culture by creating competitors within the system. Since the system is representative, it has to respond in some way to those groups.
The people in Wales want road signs in Welsh. The people in Scotland want to use Bank of Scotland currency. The Pakistani-Brits and the Kenyan-Brits want anti-discrimination laws. The Jamaican-Brits want laws to allow their family members to be allowed to come and live in the UK.
Since the Scots, the Welsh, and the Northern Irish are bigger than most groups and they because they are geographically concentrated, one of their demands has been for more self-government. One element of the political culture (Parliament) responded by passing laws devolving some authority to those nations.
But the laws did not "give rights" to those local authorities. It only gave them authority. Parliament could take back that authority as it did when it suspended the Northern Ireland Assembly until the Catholic and Protestant political forces reached cooperative agreements and the armed factions put down their weapons.
This is a very long way of saying that the response to this part of the question does not earn a point.
What's devolved is authority to do some things, not rights.
This is part C of the response.
Traditions and customs.
"Traditions and customs" are an immaterial part of British political, and every other political culture. But what is a tradition or custom of British political culture? This response does not earn a point.
Although Britain is a constitutional monarchy from several thousands of years ago, the queen is merely a celebrity; she has no power in politics. Even her speech that is made in the beginning of every Wednesday’s prime minister’s questionnaire time is not written by her and she cannot make changes.
In spite of not earning a point for part C of the question, it is possible to earn a point for part D.
Having a figurehead monarch is a tradition in the UK. That's "an immaterial manifestation of political culture." That earns a point for part C of the question.
Part D asks what effect that tradition has on the political culture. My mental rubric would center on the monarch serving as a unifying figure for the diverse population or as a symbol of the grand history of the country.
The monarch's speech at the beginning of every session of Parliament is a tradition (another one). The fact that it's written by the government and not by the monarch is another part of the political culture. The monarch's speech affects the political culture by creating a visible and material connection between the government and the nation and the nation's great and glorious past (Did you see all those fancy costumes and carriages?)
So, while this part of the response earned a point for the third part of the question, it did not earn a point for the fourth part of the question.
In conclusion, then, this response earned 2 of the possible 4 points.
This is not disastrous for your exam score. Remember that scores in 55%-65% of the total possible are in the range of 3s. And this is only one of 8 questions, and as a "Short-Answer Concept" question this one question is only worth about 3.5% of your total score. Do better on the most of the other FRCs and your exam score will be admirable.
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