Course Description
In this ten-week course, students will gain a thorough overview of the course content in a way that develops their historical reasoning processes. Knowing the facts is simply not enough to score a 4/5 on the AP World History exam. By connecting developments and processes in culture, philosophies, and international relations, students will begin to gain competencies in historical thinking skills. Through comparing artifacts and documents, students will identify and synthesize the presented claims and evidence. In addition, students will critically contextualize the ways in which social, cultural, and political forces shape the causation and trajectory of human history from 1200 to the present.
Throughout this course, students will:
- be assigned test questions based on the content covered that week
- receive feedback and writing tips on their short and long essay responses
- work in a group and individually to answer Document-Based Questions
- take full practice tests and receive feedback on a biweekly rotation
About the AP World History: Modern Course
In AP World History: Modern, students investigate significant events, individuals, developments, and processes from 1200 to the present. Students develop and use the same skills, practices, and methods employed by historians: analyzing primary and secondary sources; developing historical arguments; making historical connections; and utilizing reasoning about comparison, causation, and continuity and change over time. The course provides six themes that students explore throughout the course in order to make connections among historical developments in different times and places: humans and the environment, cultural developments and interactions, governance, economic systems, social interactions and organization, and technology and innovation.
Two course framework includes two essential components:
- Historical thinking skills
- Developments and Processes
- Sourcing and Situation
- Claims and Evidence in Source
- Contextualization
- Making Connections
- Argumentation
- Historical Reasoning Processes
- Comparison
- Causation
- Continuity and Change
- Course content
https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/pdf/ap-world-history-modern-course-and-exam-description.pdf
Course Content
You'll explore how states formed, expanded, and declined in areas of the world during the period c. 1200–c. 1450 and the related political, social, and cultural developments of that time.
Topics may include:
- States in:
- Africa
- Afro-Eurasia
- East Asia
- Europe
- South and Southeast Asia
- The Americas
- Global and regional religions and belief systems
On The Exam: 8%–10% of exam score
As you continue your study of the period c. 1200–c. 1450, you’ll learn how areas of the world were linked through trade and how these connections affected people, cultures, and environments.
Topics may include:
- The Silk Roads
- The Mongol Empire
- The Indian Ocean trading network
- The trans-Saharan trade routes
- The effects of cross-cultural interactions
On The Exam: 8%–10% of exam score
Unit 3: Land-Based Empires
You'll begin your study of the period c. 1450–c. 1750 with an exploration of the empires that held power over large contiguous areas of land.
Topics may include:
- The development of the Manchu, Mughal, Ottoman, and Safavid empires
- How rulers of empires maintained their power
- Religious developments in empires
On The Exam: 12%–15% of exam score
Unit 4: Transoceanic Interconnections
Continuing your study of the period c. 1450–c. 1750, you’ll learn about advances in ocean exploration, the development of new maritime empires, and the effects of new cross-cultural encounters.
Topics may include:
- The influence of scientific learning and technological innovation
- The Columbian Exchange
- Development and expansion of maritime empires
- Internal and external challenges to state power
- Changes to social hierarchies linked to the spread of empires
On The Exam: 12%–15% of exam score
Unit 5: Revolutions
You’ll start your study of the period c. 1750–c. 1900 by exploring the new political ideas and developments in technology that led to large-scale changes in governments, society, and economies.
Topics may include:
- The Enlightenment
- Revolutions against existing governments and the birth of new nation-states
- The Industrial Revolution
- Trade policies
- The development of industrial economies
On The Exam: 1,2%–15% of Score
Unit 6: Consequences of Industrialization
You'll continue to investigate the period c. 1750–c. 1900 and learn how the different states acquired and expanded control over colonies and territories.
Topics may include:
- State expansion in the 18th and 19th centuries
- Resistance to imperialism
- The growth of the global economy
- Economic imperialism
- Causes and effects of new migration patterns
On The Exam: 12%–15% of exam score
Unit 7: Global Conflict
You'll begin your study of the period c. 1900–present by learning about the global conflicts that dominated this era.
Topics may include:
- Changes in the global political order after 1900
- World War I: its causes and how it was fought
- The interwar period
- World War II: its causes and how it was fought
- Mass atrocities after 1900
On The Exam: 8%–10% of exam score
Unit 8: Cold War and Decolonization
As you continue exploring the period c. 1900–present, you’ll learn about colonies’ pursuits of independence and the global power struggle between capitalism and communism.
Topics may include:
- The causes and effects of the Cold War
- The spread of communism
- How colonies in Asia and Africa achieved independence
- The creation of new states after decolonization
- The end of the Cold War
On The Exam: 8%–10% of exam score
Unit 9: Globalization
You'll continue your study of the period c. 1900–present by investigating the causes and effects of the unprecedented connectivity of the modern world.
Topics may include:
- Advances in technology and their effects
- Disease
- Environment
- Economic change
- Movements for reform
- How globalization changed culture
- New international institutions
On The Exam: 8%–10% of exam score
https://apstudents.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-world-history-modern