Advanced Placement (AP) World History: Modern (also known as just AP World History, AP World, or WHAP) is a college-level course and examination offered to high school students in the United States through the College Board's

Advanced Placement program Advanced Placement (AP) is a program in the United States and Canada created by the College Board which offers college-level curricula and examinations to high school students. American colleges and universities may grant placement and course ...

designed to help students develop a greater understanding of the evolution of global processes and contacts as well as interactions between different human societies. The course advances this understanding through a combination of selective factual knowledge and appropriate analytical skills.

Course

Students used to study all prehistory and history, especially from 8000 BC to the present day. However, it was announced in July 2018 that the test would be changed to an AP World History: Modern exam that only contains content since 1200 CE, starting in the 2019–2020 school year, with plans for a new course that's about the time before called AP World History: Ancient. Students in the United States usually take the course in their

sophomore year In the United States, a sophomore ( or ) is a person in the second year at an educational institution; usually at a secondary school or at the college and university level, but also in other forms of post-secondary educational institutions. In ...

of high school, although they are not generally required to do so. The course is currently organized around four eras/periods and nine units: *Period 1 - c. 1200 to c. 1450 Unit 1: The Global Tapestry
Unit 2: Networks of Exchange *Period 2 - c. 1450 to c. 1750 Unit 3: Land-Based Empires
Unit 4: Transoceanic Interconnections *Period 3 - c. 1750 to c. 1900 Unit 5:

Revolutions In political science, a revolution (Latin: ''revolutio'', "a turn around") is a fundamental and relatively sudden change in political power and political organization which occurs when the population revolts against the government, typically due ...

Unit 6: Consequences of

Industrialization Industrialisation ( alternatively spelled industrialization) is the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial society. This involves an extensive re-organisation of an econo ...

*Period 4 - c. 1900 to the present Unit 7: Global Conflict
Unit 8:

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

and

Decolonization Decolonization or decolonisation is the undoing of colonialism, the latter being the process whereby imperial nations establish and dominate foreign territories, often overseas. Some scholars of decolonization focus especially on separatism, in ...

Unit 9:

Globalization Globalization, or globalisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is the process of interaction and integration among people, companies, and governments worldwide. The term ''globalization'' first appeared in the early 20t ...

Exam

The first section of the AP World History exam consists of 55 multiple choice questions with a 55-minute time limit. The questions are not divided up evenly between the 9 units.
While previously the exam deducted 1/4 of a point for every incorrect answer, from 2011 onwards the penalty for incorrect answers has been removed. The number of multiple choice options is being reduced from five to four at the same time. The AP World History exam was first administered in 2002. The test underwent a major overhaul for the 2017 exam, however, due to the prodigious number of students that struggled with the free response section, the College Board decided to initiate yet another round of sweeping reform, to be put in effect in May 2018. Currently it has the same format as

Advanced Placement United States History Advanced Placement (AP) United States History (also known as AP U.S. History or APUSH () is a college-level course and examination offered by College Board as part of the Advanced Placement Program. Course The AP U.S. History course is designe ...

and

Advanced Placement European History Advanced Placement (AP) European History (also known as AP Euro, or APEH), is a course and examination offered by the College Board through the Advanced Placement Program. This course is for high school students who are interested in a first year ...

. The exam features a new section (Section I Part B) that requires three short answer questions, one of which is selected from two options. Each question has three parts, making for a total of 9 parts within the SAQ section. Students have forty minutes to answer these, and they count for twenty percent of the exam score. Section II lasts for a total of 100 minutes, and it includes a document-based question (DBQ) and a long essay question (LEQ). Students are allowed to work on either essay within this total time period. The section begins with a 15-minute reading period where students are advised to read both the documents for DBQ. However, students may begin writing during this time; most students take notes on the documents in order to plan out the DBQ. Students are advised to spend 45 minutes writing the DBQ and then 40 writing the LEQ, but there are no rules on when each essay must be worked on. There are three prompts for the LEQ, but only one needs to be chosen. Each LEQ prompt addresses a different period, with one addressing periods 1 & 2, another addressing periods 3 & 4, and a third addressing periods 5 & 6. The DBQ accounts for 25% of the total exam score, and the LEQ is 15%. The essays are graded out of seven points and six points, respectively. Students are required to analyze and synthesize the sourcing documents of the DBQ, but some outside information is still needed. The LEQ only provides a prompt and no sort of stimulus, so a large amount of outside information is necessary.

Grade distribution

In 2012, the head of AP Grading, Trevor Packer, stated that the reason for the low percentages of 5s is that "AP World History is a college-level course, & many sophomores aren't yet writing at that level." 10.44 percent of all seniors who took the exam in 2012 received a 5, while just 6.62 percent of sophomores received a 5.

References

External links

AP World History at CollegeBoard.com

AP World History Study Guide on Albert

*http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/members/exam/exam_information/2090.html
AP World History: Course and Exam Description
{{College Board History education Advanced Placement