AP Environmental Science : AP Environmental Sciences

Study concepts, example questions & explanations for AP Environmental Science

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Example Questions

Example Question #3 :General Water Usage

Which of the following irrigation methods is most efficient in terms of maximizing water absorbed by plants and minimizing water lost to the system?

Possible Answers:

Furrow irrigation

Spray irrigation

Flood irrigation

Drip irrigation

Hydroponic irrigation

Correct answer:

Hydroponic irrigation

Explanation:

In hydroponics, plants are grown in nutrient-rich water and there is no soil involved in the process. Some water is lost through evaporation, but since it is a closed system, very little water is lost.

Example Question #1 :General Water Usage

Which of the following household activities consumes the most water?

Possible Answers:

Showering/Bathing

Cooking/Kitchen use

Drinking water

Flushing the toilet

Laundry

Correct answer:

Flushing the toilet

Explanation:

Flushing the toilet is the largest contributor to household water consumption, averaging about three gallons of water per flush.

Example Question #5 :General Water Usage

___________percent of the Earth's surface is covered by water and the oceans currently contain__________percent of the Earth's water.

Possible Answers:

Seventy. . . eighty-five

Seventy-five. . . eighty

Ninety-seven. . . seventy-five

Seventy-five. . . ninety-seven

Correct answer:

Seventy-five. . . ninety-seven

Explanation:

Seventy-five percent of Earth's surface is water, and the oceans contain ninety-seven percent of Earth’s water. This means that roughly three percent of the Earth's water resides in rivers, lakes, glaciers, and water vapor.

Example Question #6 :General Water Usage

Curtis owns a cottage on a freshwater lake in the Upper Peninsula. When he goes swimming in the lake, he sticks close to the shallow waters along the shore. In which layer of the lake is Curtis swimming?

Possible Answers:

None of these

Littoral

Profundal

Benthic

Limnetic

Correct answer:

Littoral

Explanation:

正确的响应littoral. The littoral layer is the layer in a freshwater lake along the shoreline with shallow water. The limnetic layer represent "open water", so this layer is off the coastline and in the middle of the freshwater lake. The benthic layer is along the bottom of the lake (i.e. benthic = bottom). And the profundal layer is the layer at the bottom of deep lakes where the light can't reach the bottom.

Example Question #7 :General Water Usage

Many rivers along the coast will move water from the terrestrial ecosystem into the oceans. What is the region where the river meets the ocean?

Possible Answers:

我们tlands

Watershed

Benthic zone

Groundwater

Delta

Correct answer:

Delta

Explanation:

正确的响应delta. This is the region where a river meets another body of water. It is a transition zone. Important ecological and biological processes occur in delta regions. One good example of a delta is the Nile Delta where the Nile River meets the Mediterranean Sea.

Example Question #8 :General Water Usage

What is the region where water collects and drains within the landscape?

Possible Answers:

Watershed

Estuary

Delta

Groundwater

我们tland

Correct answer:

Watershed

Explanation:

正确的响应watershed. A watershed is thedrainage basinfor a particular region. It’s where water collects or drains. It's functions like a funnel. The other answer choices deal with different aspects of water. Estuaries are transition zones between marine and freshwater systems. Deltas are also transition zones where a river dumps sediment into a body of water. And groundwater is not specific to a region - it's just water that is found underneath the soil surface.

Example Question #9 :General Water Usage

Water is one of the most important resources necessary for sustaining life on Earth. How much of our water by volume is found in the oceans?

Possible Answers:

85%

99.9%

75%

97%

Correct answer:

97%

Explanation:

正确的响应97%. The remaining 3% is freshwater.

Example Question #1 :Water Problems And Solutions

What percentage of the Earth's water is accessible and suitable for human use?

Possible Answers:

Betweenand

Less than

Correct answer:

Less than

Explanation:

of the Earth's surface is water, but onlyis fresh water. Considering just the fresh water, only aboutis accessible to humans in the form of lakes, rivers, and other drinking sources. That is only .007% of the Earth's water. This is the basis for the clean water crisis that faces Earth's population.

Example Question #2 :Water Problems And Solutions

What proportion of the world population do not have access to clean drinking water?

Possible Answers:

1 in 5

1 in 9

1 in 12

1 in 15

1 in 20

Correct answer:

1 in 9

Explanation:

750 million people in the world do not have access to clean drinking water. The total world population is about 7 billion, meaning every one in nine people do not have access to clean drinking water.

Example Question #3 :Water Problems And Solutions

Which of the following would be an example of non-point source water pollution?

Possible Answers:

An electricity-producing firm that has been grandfathered into existing environmental policy dumps pollutants directly into San Francisco Bay regularly.

Much of the Shenandoah Valley is devoted to beef cattle, whose feces contaminate the watershed from water runoff containing E. coli.

In the early 1900s, rivers in the Eastern industrial cities in America were catching fire due to pollution from factories that ran along the waterways.

In the 1970s, companies that produced decaffeinated coffee regularly dumped the chlorophyll waste byproduct into nearby watersheds.

At the turn of the last century, oil refineries were making huge profits on kerosene, but gasoline was considered a waste product at the time and was regularly discharged into the local rivers and waterways.

Correct answer:

Much of the Shenandoah Valley is devoted to beef cattle, whose feces contaminate the watershed from water runoff containing E. coli.

Explanation:

A point-source discharge is when pollutants are entering the watershed through an identifiable source, such as a drainage pipe from a factory. Water contamination from agricultural runoff is typically not a point-source because in a largely agrarian region, there are many farms contributing to the pollution but no specific point-source from which the pollutants enter the watershed. Agricultural pollutants typically enter the watershed either by leeching from the soil or through above-ground runoff.

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