AP Environmental Science 5.D: IPM Benefits and Drawbacks
Practice AP Environmental Science questions on how IPM reduces pesticide risks while remaining complex or expensive to implement.
- Syllabus
- Effective Fall 2025
- Course
- AP Environmental Science
Practice AP Environmental Science questions on how IPM reduces pesticide risks while remaining complex or expensive to implement.
Pesticides have been utilized for many years to increase food production and control pest populations. Pesticide use can be both beneficial and harmful to humans and other organisms.
Cotton farmers in the southern United States used a chemical pesticide to control an insect cotton-crop pest over a 40-year period. To study the effectiveness of the pesticide as an insect pest-control strategy, traps were placed in treated cotton fields and the number of pests captured were compared to application rates for the pesticide. The results of the study are shown in the table below.

There are many problems associated with the repeated application of chemical pesticides to reduce pest populations.
Justify how the method proposed in (e)(ii) would provide a benefit to humans.
1 point
Accept one of the following:
- Reduction in pesticide residue in food/reduction of pesticide ingested by humans.
- Economic benefits to humans including:
Less money spent on pesticides
Increased profit for farmers from crops
Less equipment required/less labor required to spray fields with pesticides
- Reduction in the number of workers exposed to pesticides/Improved health in agricultural workers from reduced pesticide exposure.
Total for part (e) for question 210 points