Selected Works

What this unit covers

The topics below follow the published 3-D Art & Design course framework for Unit 2. This unit is worth 40% of the exam, so budget your time against that rather than against how long the unit takes to teach.

Lessons in this unit

• Choosing 5 Works That Show Your 3-D Skills13 min · 3 objectivesExplain how Selected Works differs from the Sustained Investigation · Select 5 works that demonstrate the strongest command of form, volume, mass, and plane · Evaluate a candidate work against the two Selected Works rubric rows
• Materials, Processes, Ideas & Writing the Selected Works Responses14 min · 3 objectivesExplain "synthesis of materials, processes, and ideas" for a 3-D work · Write the short Selected Works responses so each work’s idea and process are clear · Present and cite the 5 works to meet academic-integrity requirements
• What "Skill" Means in Three Dimensions14 min · 3 objectivesAnalyze a work through form, volume, mass, and plane rather than through subject matter · Explain how balance, movement, proportion, and unity are realized physically in 3-D · Treat surface as a deliberate decision that either serves or undercuts the form
• Choosing & Sequencing the Five Works14 min · 3 objectivesBalance range against coherence when assembling the five works · Diagnose and fix a set that is really five variations of one object · Present works that are large, fragile, site-specific, or time-based
• Writing the Selected Works Responses & Academic Integrity13 min · 3 objectivesName materials, processes, and ideas specifically in a very short written response · Write for intent rather than describing what the image already shows · Distinguish transformation from appropriation and cite source objects and imagery

Every term in Unit 2

All 18 terms we publish for Selected Works, with definitions. Reading them through is the fastest way to find the ones you cannot define — then drill those in cram mode until you can produce them without the prompt.

Form

The three-dimensional shape of an object, with height, width and depth. Unlike 2-D form, this is actual rather than implied.

Selected Works

5 works submitted as images with written justification of materials, processes and ideas. Scored on 3-D skill and on how well the writing accounts for the decisions.

What Selected Works is scored on

The quality of the 3-D design thinking and whether the written justification explains it. They need not come from the Sustained Investigation.

Choosing your five for 3-D

Pick work that reads clearly in photographs. A subtle surface that the camera cannot capture will not score what it deserves.

Mass and volume

Mass is the sense of solidity and weight; volume is the space a form occupies. A hollow form can have great volume and little mass, and saying which you intended is precise writing.

Positive and negative space in 3-D

Positive space is the material; negative space is the void it defines. In sculpture the negative space is a designed element, not leftover.

Actual vs implied texture

In 3-D, texture is usually actual — it can be touched. Describing it as implied, as you would in 2-D, is a vocabulary error readers notice.

Surface treatment

Patina, glaze, polish, sanding or paint. A deliberate surface choice is a design decision and belongs in the written justification.

Balance in three dimensions

Both visual and physical. A work can be visually asymmetrical and physically stable, and the tension between the two is often the point.

Structure and load

How a form supports itself. Cantilevers, tripods and tension members are structural choices worth naming rather than leaving implicit.

Additive vs subtractive process

Additive builds up material (modeling, assembling, welding); subtractive removes it (carving, cutting). Casting is a third route that reproduces a form.

Armature

An internal skeleton supporting a modeled form. Invisible in the finished work, which is exactly why it belongs in the process images.

Maquette

A small-scale model made to test a form before committing materials. Strong evidence of experimentation.

Site and installation

Where a work sits changes how it reads. If placement is part of the idea, the documentation has to show the placement.

Scale and the viewer's body

Three-dimensional work is experienced relative to the human body. Making something hand-sized or room-sized is a decision about the viewer, not just about size.

Movement and kinetics

Implied movement through form and line, or actual movement in kinetic work. Actual movement needs video or a sequence to document.

Unity and variety in 3-D

Cohesion across a body of work, held against enough difference to show the inquiry being tested from more than one angle.

Function and non-function

Whether a work is meant to be used. Making a functional object non-functional, or the reverse, is a legitimate inquiry and worth stating plainly.

What examiners penalize here

• Readers only ever see your **photographs**, never the object. A resolved 3-D piece shot on a cluttered background, in flat light, or from one hiding angle is judged as the muddy image it appears to be. Budget real time to shoot the 5 works well — clean background, form-revealing light, a second view when needed — because poor documentation quietly costs points on both rows.
• The short responses are the only place you get to speak. Write them after the work is resolved, but not in the final hour: read each one back and ask, "does every clause name a **material**, a **process**, or an **idea**?" Delete any clause that fails the test — then confirm the current prompts and length limits on the official AP 3-D Art and Design course page before you submit.

Practice 3-D Art & Design

Our practice bank is drawn from across the whole course rather than filtered to one unit, which is closer to how the exam asks anyway — it will not tell you which unit a question is testing.

Questions about this unit

All 2 units of AP 3-D Art and Design

1. Unit 1 · Sustained Investigation
2. Unit 2 · Selected Works