Global history from roughly 1200 CE to the present, emphasizing comparison across regions.
Study guide last reviewed September 25, 2026 · see what changed
Format reflects the current published structure — always confirm against AP Central before test day, since formats occasionally change.
| Section | Details | Time | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Section I – Multiple Choice & SAQ | 55 MC + 3 short-answer questions | 1 hr 35 min | 60% |
| Section II – Free Response | 1 DBQ + 1 long essay (choice of 3 prompts) | 1 hr 40 min | 40% |
Straight answers about the AP World History: Modern exam — format, credit, dates, and this site.
Section I – Multiple Choice & SAQ: 55 MC + 3 short-answer questions (1 hr 35 min, 60% of the total score); Section II – Free Response: 1 DBQ + 1 long essay (choice of 3 prompts) (1 hr 40 min, 40% of the total score). See the Exam Format tab above for the full breakdown, and always double-check the current year's format on AP Central before test day.
It's multiple-choice questions and written free-response or essay questions.
It depends entirely on the college — most award credit for a 3 or higher, but many selective schools require a 4 or a 5, and some don't grant credit at all for certain scores. Always check your target college's own AP credit policy page rather than assuming a 3 will count everywhere.
AP exams are administered during the College Board's annual testing window in the first two full weeks of May, with the exact date and time for each subject set by the College Board and announced the preceding fall. Check AP Central or your school's AP coordinator for this year's exact date.
Yes. The unit-by-unit study guide, worked examples, practice quiz, and full-length timed practice exam on this page are all free, with no login, signup, or paywall.
Unit-by-unit breakdown of what the course actually covers, in teaching order.
Major civilizations around 1200 CE compared across regions — Song China's technological sophistication, the Islamic Caliphates' extent, Mesoamerican and Andean civilizations — establishing the baseline the rest of the course builds from.
The Silk Roads' overland trade alongside the Indian Ocean trade network's monsoon-dependent maritime routes, and how these networks spread not just goods but religions, technologies, and diseases (the Black Death's spread along trade routes).
The Ottoman, Safavid, Mughal, Qing, and Russian empires' administrative strategies for governing vast, diverse populations, and specific comparison points like religious tolerance policies and gunpowder technology's role in these empires' expansion.
European maritime technology enabling transoceanic voyages, the Columbian Exchange's specific transfers (crops, animals, diseases, people) and their devastating demographic impact on the Americas, and the Atlantic slave trade's triangular trade structure.
The intellectual roots (Enlightenment) shared by the American, French, Haitian, and Latin American independence revolutions, and the Industrial Revolution's origins in Britain and its rapid global spread reshaping production and society.
New imperialism's economic motivations (raw materials, markets) distinct from earlier colonization, the Scramble for Africa's arbitrary borders, and industrialization's uneven global spread creating new economic hierarchies between industrialized and non-industrialized regions.
World War I's alliance-system origins and unprecedented industrial warfare, the interwar period's instability (Great Depression, rise of fascism), and World War II's global scope including the Holocaust and the Pacific theater alongside the European conflict.
The US-Soviet ideological rivalry playing out through proxy wars (Korea, Vietnam) rather than direct conflict, and decolonization's wave across Africa and Asia, often complicated by Cold War superpower competition for influence over newly independent states.
Accelerating economic interconnection through trade agreements and multinational corporations, technology's role in compressing global communication, and globalization's uneven benefits/costs across different regions and populations, including backlash movements against it.
One fully-built thesis-plus-evidence example per era, built around cross-regional comparison — the specific skill this course tests most heavily.
Comparison prompt: "Compare methods of imperial administration in the Ottoman and Mughal Empires."
A strong thesis identifies a specific similarity and difference: both empires used religious tolerance policies to govern diverse populations (the Ottoman millet system, Mughal Akbar's policies toward Hindus), but differed in how centralized their administration was — a thesis that only lists facts about each empire separately, without stating the comparison, won't earn full credit.
Causation reasoning: explain a specific consequence of the Columbian Exchange on the Americas.
A strong answer names the actual mechanism, not just the outcome: European diseases like smallpox, to which Indigenous populations had no prior immunity, caused catastrophic population decline — which in turn drove the shift toward African slave labor to meet the resulting labor shortage on plantations. Tracing that full chain (disease → population collapse → labor shortage → slave trade) earns more credit than stating any single link alone.
Comparison prompt: compare the causes of the French Revolution and the Haitian Revolution.
A strong thesis notes the shared Enlightenment ideological roots but a key structural difference: the Haitian Revolution was distinctively driven by enslaved people applying revolutionary ideals of liberty and equality to their own condition — directly confronting France's continued practice of slavery even as it proclaimed universal rights at home.
Continuity and change reasoning: how did Cold War dynamics complicate decolonization in Africa and Asia?
A strong answer avoids treating decolonization as purely a story of a colony gaining independence — it explains how superpower competition for influence over newly independent states (proxy conflicts, economic aid tied to alignment) shaped which political and economic systems those new states adopted, adding a layer of external pressure beyond the colonial relationship itself.
The errors that cost the most points across the whole exam, not just one unit.
Unofficial practice questions written for this study guide — not official AP content and not from College Board. Use them to self-check, then use the real past free-response questions below for authentic exam practice.
Unofficial practice, timed to feel like the real thing. Section I pulls from this page's full multiple-choice bank; Section II gives you free-response prompts to write out and self-score against a rubric. Bank size is still growing toward full exam length — timing is paced per-question, not pulled from this subject's official duration.