AP World History: Modern

What the course covers

9 units, with exam weights

1. Unit 1

   The Global Tapestry

   8-10% of examFree
   c. 1200 to c. 1450. How states across Afro-Eurasia and the Americas built and justified power before the great convergences: Song China's Confucian bureaucracy and commercial boom, new Turkic-led states as the Abbasid Caliphate fragmented, Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms in South and Southeast Asia, the Mexica, Inca, and Cahokia, Great Zimbabwe and Ethiopia, and a decentralized, feudal Europe.
   7 topics

   1. 1.1Developments in East Asia from c. 1200 to c. 1450
   2. 1.2Developments in Dar al-Islam from c. 1200 to c. 1450
   3. 1.3Developments in South and Southeast Asia from c. 1200 to c. 1450
   4. 1.4State Building in the Americas
   5. 1.5State Building in Africa
   6. 1.6Developments in Europe from c. 1200 to c. 1450
   7. 1.7Comparison in the Period from c. 1200 to c. 1450

2. Unit 2

   Networks of Exchange

   8-10% of exam
   c. 1200 to c. 1450. How the Silk Roads, the Indian Ocean, and trans-Saharan routes grew in volume and reach, how the Mongol khanates and Mali drew new peoples into trade, and what moved along those routes: goods, credit, faiths, technologies, travelers' accounts, crops, and the plague.
   7 topics

   1. 2.1The Silk Roads
   2. 2.2The Mongol Empire and the Making of the Modern World
   3. 2.3Exchange in the Indian Ocean
   4. 2.4Trans-Saharan Trade Routes
   5. 2.5Cultural Consequences of Connectivity
   6. 2.6Environmental Consequences of Connectivity
   7. 2.7Comparison of Economic Exchange

3. Unit 3

   Land-Based Empires

   12-15% of exam
   c. 1450 to c. 1750. How gunpowder empires such as the Ottomans, Safavids, Mughals, Manchu Qing, and others expanded and ruled diverse populations: armies and rivalries, bureaucratic elites and military professionals, tax systems, monumental art and religious legitimacy, and the religious upheavals of the Reformation, the Sunni-Shi'a split, and Sikhism.
   4 topics

   1. 3.1Empires Expand
   2. 3.2Empires: Administration
   3. 3.3Empires: Belief Systems
   4. 3.4Comparison in Land-Based Empires

4. Unit 4

   Transoceanic Interconnections

   12-15% of exam
   c. 1450 to c. 1750. How new ships and navigational knowledge let European states build maritime empires, how the Columbian Exchange remade diets, ecologies, and populations, how silver, sugar, and enslaved labor bound the Atlantic and Pacific into one economy, and how states, elites, and ordinary people resisted and reshaped the new order.
   8 topics

   1. 4.1Technological Innovations from 1450 to 1750
   2. 4.2Exploration: Causes and Events from 1450 to 1750
   3. 4.3Columbian Exchange
   4. 4.4Maritime Empires Established
   5. 4.5Maritime Empires Maintained and Developed
   6. 4.6Internal and External Challenges to State Power from 1450 to 1750
   7. 4.7Changing Social Hierarchies from 1450 to 1750
   8. 4.8Continuity and Change from 1450 to 1750

5. Unit 5

   Revolutions

   12-15% of exam
   c. 1750 to c. 1900. How Enlightenment ideas and nationalism fed revolutions across the Atlantic world and beyond, and how industrialization began in Britain, spread to Europe, the United States, Russia, and Japan, created new technologies, businesses, and classes, and provoked reform movements, unions, and socialist ideologies.
   10 topics

   1. 5.1The Enlightenment
   2. 5.2Nationalism and Revolutions in the Period from 1750 to 1900
   3. 5.3Industrial Revolution Begins
   4. 5.4Industrialization Spreads in the Period from 1750 to 1900
   5. 5.5Technology of the Industrial Age
   6. 5.6Industrialization: Government's Role from 1750 to 1900
   7. 5.7Economic Developments and Innovations in the Industrial Age
   8. 5.8Reactions to the Industrial Economy from 1750 to 1900
   9. 5.9Society and the Industrial Age
   10. 5.10Continuity and Change in the Industrial Age

6. Unit 6

   Consequences of Industrialization

   12-15% of exam
   c. 1750 to c. 1900. How industrial states justified and built new empires in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific, how Indigenous peoples resisted and formed new states, how export economies and economic imperialism reorganized global trade, and why tens of millions of people migrated, freely or under coercion.
   8 topics

   1. 6.1Rationales for Imperialism from 1750 to 1900
   2. 6.2State Expansion from 1750 to 1900
   3. 6.3Indigenous Responses to State Expansion from 1750 to 1900
   4. 6.4Global Economic Development from 1750 to 1900
   5. 6.5Economic Imperialism from 1750 to 1900
   6. 6.6Causes of Migration in an Interconnected World
   7. 6.7Effects of Migration
   8. 6.8Causation in the Imperial Age

7. Unit 7

   Global Conflict

   8-10% of exam
   c. 1900 to the present. How the Ottoman, Russian, and Qing empires collapsed, why two world wars became total wars, how governments reshaped their economies after the Great Depression, why imperial tensions persisted between the wars, and why the century produced genocide and mass atrocity.
   9 topics

   1. 7.1Shifting Power After 1900
   2. 7.2Causes of World War I
   3. 7.3Conducting World War I
   4. 7.4Economy in the Interwar Period
   5. 7.5Unresolved Tensions After World War I
   6. 7.6Causes of World War II
   7. 7.7Conducting World War II
   8. 7.8Mass Atrocities After 1900
   9. 7.9Causation in Global Conflict

8. Unit 8

   Cold War and Decolonization

   8-10% of exam
   c. 1900 to the present. How World War II opened the way for superpower rivalry and the end of empires: the ideological Cold War and its alliances, proxy wars, and nonaligned alternatives, communist revolutions and land reform, negotiated and violent paths to independence, the new states and migrations that followed, movements for and against violence, and why the Cold War ended.
   9 topics

   1. 8.1Setting the Stage for the Cold War and Decolonization
   2. 8.2The Cold War
   3. 8.3Effects of the Cold War
   4. 8.4Spread of Communism After 1900
   5. 8.5Decolonization After 1900
   6. 8.6Newly Independent States
   7. 8.7Global Resistance to Established Power Structures After 1900
   8. 8.8End of the Cold War
   9. 8.9Causation in the Age of the Cold War and Decolonization

9. Unit 9

   Globalization

   8-10% of exam
   c. 1900 to the present. How new technologies of communication, transport, energy, agriculture, and medicine shrank distance and lengthened lives, how disease and environmental change tested those gains, how free-market policies and knowledge economies remade the world economy, and how rights movements, global culture, resistance to globalization, and international institutions reshaped societies.
   9 topics

   1. 9.1Advances in Technology and Exchange After 1900
   2. 9.2Technological Advances and Limitations After 1900: Disease
   3. 9.3Technological Advances: Debates About the Environment After 1900
   4. 9.4Economics in the Global Age
   5. 9.5Calls for Reform and Responses After 1900
   6. 9.6Globalized Culture After 1900
   7. 9.7Resistance to Globalization After 1900
   8. 9.8Institutions Developing in a Globalized World
   9. 9.9Continuity and Change in a Globalized World

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 each. Items come in sets of usually 3 or 4 that share one or more stimuli: primary texts, secondary texts, images (art, photos, posters, cartoons), charts or other quantitative data, and maps. At least one set uses a pair of text sources. Every item requires reading the source and connecting it to course developments.

• Section I, Part B: Short Answer

  Questions

  3

  Time

  40 min

  Weight

  20%

  Format details

  Task types: SAQ 1 (Secondary Text Source), SAQ 2 (Primary Text Source), SAQ 3 (Non-Text Source)

  All three questions are required (no choice, starting May 2027). Question 1 uses one or more secondary text sources, question 2 a primary text source, and question 3 a primary or secondary non-text source such as a map, chart, or image. Together they cover 1200 to 2001, and each one focuses on a different historical period. Three parts per question, 1 point per part.

• Section II, Question 1: Document-Based Question

  Questions

  1

  Time

  1 h

  Weight

  25%

  Format details

  Task types: DBQ

  Seven documents offering various perspectives on one historical development or process from anywhere in the years 1200 to 2001. The 60 recommended minutes include a 15-minute reading period. Section II is 1 hour 40 minutes in total, shared with the long essay.

• Section II, Question 2: Long Essay Question

  Questions

  1

  Time

  40 min

  Weight

  15%

  Format details

  Task types: LEQ

  One required prompt (no choice, starting May 2027) with a brief orienting statement. It spans roughly half the chronological scope of the course; students may focus on one or more developments and need not cover the whole period.

Skills the exam scores

• 1.ADevelopments and Processes: identify

  Recognize and name a historical concept, development, or process accurately.

• 1.BDevelopments and Processes: explain

  Explain how or why a historical concept, development, or process happened or worked.

• 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 the claim or argument made 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 two sources

  Compare the arguments or main ideas of two sources.

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

  Explain how particular claims or evidence would support, modify, or refute a source's argument.

• 4.AContextualization: identify context

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

• 4.BContextualization: explain context

  Explain how a specific development or process fits within, and is shaped by, a broader historical context.

• 5.AMaking Connections: identify patterns

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

• 5.BMaking Connections: explain relationships

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

• 6.AArgumentation: make a claim

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

• 6.BArgumentation: support with evidence

  Support an argument with specific and relevant evidence, describing it and explaining how it supports the claim.

• 6.CArgumentation: reason with evidence

  Use historical reasoning to explain the relationships among pieces of historical evidence.

• 6.DArgumentation: build a complex argument

  Corroborate, qualify, or modify an argument with diverse and alternative evidence: weigh multiple variables, connect within and across periods, weigh a source's credibility and limits, or explain why a claim does or does not hold up.