AP European History

What the course covers

9 units, with exam weights

1. Unit 1

   Renaissance and Exploration

   10-15% of examFree
   c. 1450 to c. 1648. The revival of classical learning in the Italian city-states and its spread north, the printing press, the consolidating new monarchies, and the voyages that pulled Europe into an Atlantic and global economy, with the Columbian Exchange, the slave trade, and a commercial revolution that remade European society.
   11 topics

   1. 1.1Contextualizing Renaissance and Discovery
   2. 1.2Italian Renaissance
   3. 1.3Northern Renaissance
   4. 1.4Printing
   5. 1.5New Monarchies
   6. 1.6Technological Advances and the Age of Exploration
   7. 1.7Rivals on the World Stage
   8. 1.8Colonial Expansion and Columbian Exchange
   9. 1.9The Slave Trade
   10. 1.10The Commercial Revolution
   11. 1.11Causation in the Renaissance and Age of Discovery

2. Unit 2

   Age of Reformation

   10-15% of exam
   c. 1450 to c. 1648. Luther's challenge splits Western Christendom, Protestantism diversifies, Rome answers with the Catholic Reformation, and religion and dynastic politics fuse into a century of war that ends at Westphalia in 1648, while social life, gender roles, and art change around them.
   8 topics

   1. 2.1Contextualizing 16th- and 17th-Century Challenges and Developments
   2. 2.2Luther and the Protestant Reformation
   3. 2.3Protestant Reform Continues
   4. 2.4Wars of Religion
   5. 2.5The Catholic Reformation
   6. 2.616th-Century Society and Politics
   7. 2.7Art of the 16th Century: Mannerism and Baroque Art
   8. 2.8Causation in the Age of Reformation and the Wars of Religion

3. Unit 3

   Absolutism and Constitutionalism

   10-15% of exam
   c. 1648 to c. 1815. After Westphalia, rulers compete to build stronger states. France, Russia, Prussia, and Austria move toward absolutism; England and the Dutch Republic limit royal power. Mercantilism, the Atlantic slave-labor system, and the balance of power shape the economy and diplomacy of the age.
   8 topics

   1. 3.1Contextualizing State Building
   2. 3.2The English Civil War and the Glorious Revolution
   3. 3.3Continuities and Changes to Economic Practice and Development
   4. 3.4Economic Development and Mercantilism
   5. 3.5The Dutch Golden Age
   6. 3.6Balance of Power
   7. 3.7Absolutist Approaches to Power
   8. 3.8Comparison in the Age of Absolutism and Constitutionalism

4. Unit 4

   Scientific, Philosophical, and Political Developments

   10-15% of exam
   c. 1648 to c. 1815. The Scientific Revolution replaces the inherited picture of the cosmos and the body, and the Enlightenment turns reason on government, religion, and the economy. Population grows, cities swell, the arts change, and some monarchs try to rule as enlightened absolutists.
   7 topics

   1. 4.1Contextualizing the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment
   2. 4.2The Scientific Revolution
   3. 4.3The Enlightenment
   4. 4.418th-Century Society and Demographics
   5. 4.518th-Century Culture and Arts
   6. 4.6Enlightened and Other Approaches to Power
   7. 4.7Causation in the Age of the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment

5. Unit 5

   Conflict, Crisis, and Reaction in the Late 18th Century

   10-15% of exam
   c. 1648 to c. 1815. Global commercial rivalry, above all between Britain and France, leads to debt and crisis. The French Revolution moves from liberal reform to radical republic, Napoleon spreads and betrays its ideals across Europe, the Congress of Vienna rebuilds the old order, and Romanticism challenges Enlightenment reason.
   9 topics

   1. 5.1Contextualizing 18th-Century States
   2. 5.2The Rise of Global Markets
   3. 5.3Britain's Ascendency
   4. 5.4The French Revolution
   5. 5.5The French Revolution's Effects
   6. 5.6Napoleon's Rise, Dominance, and Defeat
   7. 5.7The Congress of Vienna
   8. 5.8Romanticism
   9. 5.9Continuity and Change in 18th-Century States

6. Unit 6

   Industrialization and Its Effects

   10-15% of exam
   c. 1815 to c. 1914. Industrialization begins in Britain and spreads unevenly across the continent, then accelerates in a second wave of steel, chemicals, and electricity. New classes, cities, and ideologies emerge; conservatives try to hold the line after 1815, revolutions break out in 1848, and governments eventually answer with reform.
   10 topics

   1. 6.1Contextualizing Industrialization and Its Origins and Effects
   2. 6.2The Spread of Industry Throughout Europe
   3. 6.3Second-Wave Industrialization and Its Effects
   4. 6.4Social Effects of Industrialization
   5. 6.5The Concert of Europe and European Conservatism
   6. 6.6Reactions and Revolutions
   7. 6.7Ideologies of Change and Reform Movements
   8. 6.819th-Century Social Reform
   9. 6.9Institutional Responses and Reform
   10. 6.10Causation in the Age of Industrialization

7. Unit 7

   19th-Century Perspectives and Political Developments

   10-15% of exam
   c. 1815 to c. 1914. Nationalism builds Italy and Germany and strains multiethnic empires. Darwin, Freud, and the new physics unsettle old certainties. The New Imperialism carries European power across Africa and Asia, art moves from Romanticism through Realism to the first modernists, and alliances harden toward war.
   9 topics

   1. 7.1Contextualizing 19th-Century Perspectives and Political Developments
   2. 7.2Nationalism
   3. 7.3National Unification and Diplomatic Tensions
   4. 7.4Darwinism, Social Darwinism
   5. 7.5The Age of Progress and Modernity
   6. 7.6New Imperialism: Motivations and Methods
   7. 7.7Imperialism's Global Effects
   8. 7.819th-Century Culture and Arts
   9. 7.9Causation in 19th-Century Perspectives and Political Developments

8. Unit 8

   20th-Century Global Conflicts

   10-15% of exam
   c. 1914 to the present. Two world wars, the Russian Revolution, a failed peace, a global depression, and the rise of fascist and Soviet totalitarianism culminate in the Holocaust. The era of catastrophe transforms European culture, science, gender roles, and ideas about the individual and the state.
   11 topics

   1. 8.1Contextualizing 20th-Century Global Conflicts
   2. 8.2World War I
   3. 8.3The Russian Revolution and Its Effects
   4. 8.4Versailles Conference and Peace Settlement
   5. 8.5Global Economic Crisis
   6. 8.6Fascism and Totalitarianism
   7. 8.7Europe During the Interwar Period
   8. 8.8World War II
   9. 8.9The Holocaust
   10. 8.1020th-Century Cultural, Intellectual, and Artistic Developments
   11. 8.11Continuity and Changes in an Age of Global Conflict

9. Unit 9

   Cold War and Contemporary Europe

   10-15% of exam
   c. 1914 to the present, centered on the decades after 1945. Europe rebuilds and splits between two superpower blocs, empires dissolve, welfare states rise and are contested, communism collapses in 1989 to 1991, and European integration grows into the European Union amid migration, globalization, and new movements for rights.
   15 topics

   1. 9.1Contextualizing Cold War and Contemporary Europe
   2. 9.2Rebuilding Europe
   3. 9.3The Cold War
   4. 9.4Two Super Powers Emerge
   5. 9.5Postwar Nationalism, Ethnic Conflict, and Atrocities
   6. 9.6Contemporary Western Democracies
   7. 9.7The Fall of Communism
   8. 9.820th-Century Feminism
   9. 9.9Decolonization
   10. 9.10The European Union
   11. 9.11Migration and Immigration
   12. 9.12Technology
   13. 9.13Globalization
   14. 9.1420th- and 21st-Century Culture, Arts, and Demographic Trends
   15. 9.15Continuity and Change in the 20th and 21st Centuries

The exam, part by part

4 parts, 3 h 15 min in all.

• Section I, Part A: Multiple Choice

  Questions

  55

  Time

  55 min

  Weight

  40%

  Format details

  Four answer choices. Questions come in sets of 3 or 4 that share a stimulus: primary texts, secondary (historian) texts, images such as paintings, cartoons, posters, and photographs, charts or tables of data, and maps. At least one set uses a pair of text sources.

• Section I, Part B: Short Answer

  Questions

  3

  Time

  40 min

  Weight

  20%

  Format details

  Task types: SAQ-secondary, SAQ-primary, SAQ-nontext

  All three questions are required and every one has a source (May 2027 format). Question 1 uses a secondary text, question 2 a primary text, question 3 a primary or secondary non-text source. Together they span 1450 to 2001, each on a different period. About 13 minutes per question.

• Section II, Question 1: Document-Based Question

  Questions

  1

  Time

  1 h

  Weight

  25%

  Format details

  Task types: DBQ

  Seven documents. The 60 recommended minutes include a 15-minute reading and planning period. The topic can come from anywhere between 1450 and 2001.

• Section II, Question 2: Long Essay

  Questions

  1

  Time

  40 min

  Weight

  15%

  Format details

  Task types: LEQ

  One required prompt (May 2027 format) that spans roughly half of the course chronology. Students choose which development or developments named in the prompt to build their argument on and are not expected to cover the whole period.

Skills the exam scores

• 1.ADevelopments and Processes: identify

  Identify a historical concept, development, or process.

• 1.BDevelopments and Processes: explain

  Explain a historical concept, development, or process, going beyond naming it to show how or why it happened.

• 2.ASourcing and Situation: identify

  Identify a source's point of view, purpose, historical situation, or audience.

• 2.BSourcing and Situation: explain

  Explain the point of view, purpose, historical situation, or audience of a source.

• 2.CSourcing and Situation: significance and limits

  Explain why a source's point of view, purpose, situation, or audience matters, including how it limits what the source can be used to show.

• 3.AClaims and Evidence: identify the claim

  Identify and describe a claim or argument in a text or non-text source.

• 3.BClaims and Evidence: identify the evidence

  Identify the evidence a source uses to support its argument.

• 3.CClaims and Evidence: compare arguments

  Compare the arguments or main ideas of two sources.

• 3.DClaims and Evidence: support, modify, refute

  Explain how a claim or piece of evidence supports, modifies, or refutes a source's argument.

• 4.AContextualization: identify context

  Identify and describe the historical context of a specific development or process.

• 4.BContextualization: situate

  Explain how a specific development or process fits within a broader historical context.

• 5.AMaking Connections: patterns

  Identify patterns among, or connections between, historical developments and processes.

• 5.BMaking Connections: relate

  Explain how one historical development or process relates to another, using comparison, causation, or continuity and change.

• 6.AArgumentation: claim

  Make a historically defensible claim that establishes a line of reasoning.

• 6.BArgumentation: evidence

  Support an argument with specific and relevant evidence: describe the examples, then explain how they support the claim.

• 6.CArgumentation: reasoning

  Use historical reasoning (comparison, causation, continuity and change) to explain relationships among pieces of evidence.

• 6.DArgumentation: complexity

  Corroborate, qualify, or modify an argument with diverse or alternative evidence to build a complex argument, for example by weighing multiple variables, connecting across periods, or judging a source's credibility and limits.