AP Physics Task Verbs: All 14, Defined by the CED

What the CED prints, and how far it goes

Each of the four course and exam descriptions carries a page headed "Task Verbs Used in Free-Response Questions": printed page 175 in AP Physics 1, 187 in AP Physics 2, 169 in AP Physics C: Mechanics and 143 in AP Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism.

The four pages are the same page. Set the text of all four side by side with whitespace and the running footer removed and they match character for character: the same fourteen verbs in the same alphabetical order with the same definitions. Nothing is added for the calculus-based courses and nothing is dropped for the algebra-based ones.

One sentence at the top sets the scope, and it is the sentence most often left out when this list gets reprinted:

> The following task verbs are commonly used in the free-response questions.

Commonly used. Not exhaustive, not a closed vocabulary, and not a promise that a question will never phrase an instruction some other way. Anyone building a rubric or a curriculum document off this list should carry that qualifier with it.

What the CED does not print is any statement of how many points each verb is worth, or any instruction on answer length. Those live in the scoring guidelines that College Board releases after each exam, which are a separate document from the CED.

The 14 task verbs, quoted

Definitions below are the CED's own wording, transcribed rather than paraphrased.

Fourteen rows. Counted against the printed page item by item, that is the whole list.

Justify, and why explain is not on the list

The verb that costs the most marks is the one whose neighbour does not exist.

Explain is not a task verb in any of the four course and exam descriptions. The word appears inside three of the definitions above, as a noun in Indicate's "without elaboration or explanation", as a synonym in Compare's "description or explanation", and as a purpose in Verify's "to explain why it applies". It is never itself defined. Nor does it appear as an instruction in any of the four CEDs' sample free-response sections, which were checked word by word for it.

What the CED does define is Justify: "Provide qualitative reasoning beyond mathematical derivations or expressions to support, qualify, or defend a claim." Three things are load-bearing in that sentence.

• Qualitative. The reasoning has to be in words about physics, not in algebra. A derivation is not a justification.
• Beyond mathematical derivations or expressions. This is the CED saying explicitly that repeating your working does not count. If your justification could be deleted and the algebra would say the same thing, you have not justified.
• A claim. Justify presupposes something to defend. It travels with a claim you have already made, usually one that Indicate or Determine asked for in the part just above.

The CED reinforces this inside its own sample question. AP Physics 1's Question 1, part B, printed page 187, asks students to indicate whether one time is greater than, less than, or equal to another, then says: "Justify your reasoning. In your justification, include qualitative reasoning beyond mathematical derivations or expressions." The definition is repeated inside the question stem, which is not something the CED does for any other verb.

The practical difference, and this next paragraph is this site's guidance rather than the CED's wording: treat any instruction to explain as a request for the same thing Justify asks for. Say which physical principle applies, say why the conditions of the scenario satisfy it, and say what that implies for the specific claim. A statement of fact with no link to the scenario is a Describe answer being submitted where a Justify answer was wanted, and it is the single most common way to lose a reasoning point.

Verbs that look alike and are not

Six pairs and triples do most of the damage. The definitions are the CED's; the reading of them is this site's.

Calculate against Determine against Estimate. Calculate demands "properly substituted numbers, and correct labeling of units and significant figures", so it wants arithmetic shown and a labelled result. Determine is broader: "a decision or arrive at a conclusion after reasoning, observation, or applying mathematical routines", so a Determine part may be answered without a number if reasoning gets you there. Estimate lowers the bar in a specific way: "showing steps in calculations are not required", and an estimate may legitimately be a sign or an inequality rather than a value.

Derive against Calculate. Derive names its starting point: "Starting with a fundamental law or relationship". You are being scored on the pathway from a principle to a result, which is why the AP Physics 1 sample question adds "Begin your derivation by writing a fundamental physics principle or an equation from the reference information" (printed page 186). A Derive answer that opens with a rearranged formula pulled from memory has skipped the part being paid for. Calculate has no such requirement and typically ends in a number.

Draw against Sketch against Plot. Draw makes "a diagram or schematic": objects, arrows, a circuit. Sketch makes "a graph, representation, or model": a shape showing behaviour. Plot puts "data points in a graph using a given scale or indicating the scale and units": actual data on actual axes. Draw and Sketch both say "Labels may or may not be required"; Plot does not, and its definition builds the scale and units in.

Label on its own. It is a separate verb with its own definition covering "unit, scale, and/or components". A question that says draw and label is asking for two things and can score them separately, as the AP Physics 1 sample Question 1 does.

Describe against Indicate. Describe gives "the relevant characteristics of a specified topic". Indicate gives "information about a specified topic, without elaboration or explanation". Indicate is the shortest answer the exam ever asks for. When a part says indicate whether a quantity is greater, less than, or equal, the whole answer is one of those three, and the reasoning belongs in whatever comes next.

Compare against Rank. Compare wants "similarities and/or differences", in prose. Rank wants an ordering "typically by size or magnitude". A ranked list is not a comparison, and a paragraph of similarities is not a ranking.

Which verbs the CED's own sample questions actually use

Each CED prints a full set of sample free-response questions after the task verb page. Reading the directive words in those four sample sections gives a picture of how the list is used in practice rather than how it is defined.

That table records whether the word occurs anywhere in the sample free-response section, not only where it heads an instruction, so it is a generous test. Twelve of the fourteen pass it. Compare and Verify occur in none of the four sample sections, which is a fact about four sample papers rather than about the exam, and is exactly the kind of thing that should not be turned into advice to skip them.

More useful is what does not appear. The four sample sections run over printed pages 186 to 194 in AP Physics 1, 196 to 202 in AP Physics 2, 180 to 185 in C: Mechanics and 153 to 160 in C: E&M. Searching all four for explain, predict, state, list, discuss, find, identify and give returns nothing at all. In particular, no sample question in any of the four courses asks a student to explain anything.

Two instructions do fall outside the fourteen, and honesty about the list requires naming them. AP Physics 2's sample Question 1 says "Complete the following tasks on Figure 2" as a wrapper around bulleted Draw and Label instructions. The C: E&M sample asks students to "write zero" beneath a region of a table where a field is negligible. Neither word is defined in the CED and neither is doing the work of a task verb; both sit inside instructions whose actual verb is on the list. That is what the "commonly used" hedge in the opening sentence is there to cover.

On frequency: Determine is the most common of the fourteen in the AP Physics 1 and C: Mechanics samples, and Indicate is the most common in the AP Physics 2 and C: E&M samples. Both ask for a conclusion, which fits a section where skills 3.B and 3.C carry a large share of the points.

How each verb maps onto a science practice skill

The CED does not print a verb-to-skill mapping. What it does print is a skill list beside each free-response question type, and skill statements whose wording overlaps the verb definitions closely enough that the correspondence is hard to miss.

The table below is this site's reading, offered as a study aid rather than as a College Board statement.

Two of the ten skills have no obvious verb of their own. Skill 2.D, predicting new values using functional dependence, is usually reached through a question stem rather than a single word, and Predict is not a defined task verb. Skill 3.A, creating experimental procedures, arrives as Describe applied to a method, which is how the AP Physics 1 sample laboratory question phrases it.

The overlap between 2.B's statement and the definitions of Calculate and Estimate is close to verbatim, and the overlap between 3.C's statement and the definition of Justify is closer still. That is not an accident of drafting, but it is not a mapping the CED asserts either.

What an answer to each verb has to contain

Everything in this section is this site's guidance built on the definitions above, not CED wording. It is here because the definitions say what a verb means and not what a complete answer looks like.

• Calculate. A relationship, the numbers substituted into it visibly, a result, a unit. Significant figures consistent with the data, because the definition names them.
• Derive. A named starting principle on the first line, then algebra, then a symbolic result in the variables the question specified. No numbers unless asked.
• Determine. Whichever route you take, end with the conclusion stated as a conclusion. A page of correct work with no closing sentence has not determined anything.
• Estimate. A value, sign, or inequality, plus enough of the basis to show it was not guessed. Steps are optional by definition, so do not spend the time.
• Describe. Characteristics of the thing asked about, in complete sentences, without arguing a case. Two or three specific features beat a paragraph of generalities.
• Indicate. The bare choice or quantity. Nothing else. Adding reasoning here is free of risk but also free of reward, and it eats time the justification needs.
• Justify. Principle, then why the scenario satisfies it, then what follows for the claim. In words. If the paragraph would survive with the algebra deleted, it is doing its job.
• Verify. Check the stated conditions one at a time against the situation, then state that the law applies. Verification is a checklist, not an argument.
• Compare. Both sides, in the same sentence structure, with the point of difference explicit. "A is larger" is a rank, not a comparison.
• Rank. An ordered list with the relation written out, including ties. Ranking is one of the few places where writing an equals sign is part of the answer.
• Draw. Distinct arrows or components, each starting where it is exerted. Draw what the question contains, not what a typical version of the scenario contains.
• Sketch. Correct shape, correct intercepts, correct concavity, correct end behaviour. Numbers on the axes are not required unless the question asks.
• Plot. Every data point on the grid, axes labelled with quantity and unit, scale either used as given or stated by you.
• Label. Unit, scale, or component name, placed on the representation itself rather than in a caption.

One habit spans all fourteen. Multi-verb parts are multi-point parts. "Draw and label", "indicate and justify", "derive and then calculate" are each two tasks with two lines in the rubric, and answering one of the two collects one of the two.