AP® World History: Modern
Tips to Score a 5 on the Exam

Unit 1 is a global look at the development of states between 1200 and 1450. To master this unit, students should understand the similarities and differences in the ways states developed during the period.

Specifically, Unit 1 tests will cover:

• Chinese dynasties and their systems of government, the spread of Chinese cultural traditions in Asia, and the economic effects of Chinese innovation during the period.
• The rise of Dar al-Islam and the effect of Islam’s system of beliefs and intellectual innovations on society during the period.
• How South and Southeast Asian states developed and maintained power, and how belief systems shaped society during the period.
• Factors that gave rise to the states of the Americas, what caused these states to change, and the reasons behind their decline during the period.
• Factors that gave rise to the states of Africa, what caused these states to change, and the reasons behind their decline.
• The decentralization of political power in Europe, the effects of agriculture on social organization in Europe, and how religion shaped Europe during the period.

Unit 2 examines the increase in economic activity associated with the growth of trade routes between 1200 and 1450. To master this unit, students should understand the similarities and differences between the key trading networks during the period.

Specifically, Unit 2 tests will cover:

• The growth of the Silk Road after 1200.
• Factors that influence the development and decline of states of Eurasia, the rise of the Mongol Empire, and its effect on communication and trade.
• Reasons the Indian Ocean Trading Network expanded after 1200, the impact of this expanded trade on societies, such as the Swahili-States, during the period.
• The expansion of the Trans-Saharan trade and kingdoms, such as the Mali and Songhai, which competed to control trade.
• Cultural connections and influences that resulted from travel writings, the spread of Buddhism in Southeast Asia, the spread of Islam, and innovation and technology.
• Diffusion of crops and agricultural methods, the spread of epidemics, and environmental degradation that resulted from trade.

Unit 3 examines land-based empires that were multi-ethnic states that controlled large territories between 1450 and 1750. Students will need to be familiar with powerful states in Europe and the Ming, the Manchus, the Mughals, the Ottomans, the Songhai, and the Safavids. To master the unit, students should understand the methods these empires used to gain power and influence during the period.

Specifically, Unit 3 tests will cover:

• The role gunpowder and the printing press played in the rise and fall of empires in Europe and East Asia during the period.
• The administration of empires, such as methods used to legitimize or consolidate power.
• Causes for and effects of changes in belief systems within empires.

Unit 4 examines the causes and consequences of European maritime exploration between 1450 and 1750. Students will need to be familiar with the Spanish and Portuguese maritime trading empires and the Columbian Exchange. To master this unit, students should understand the extent to which the development of trans-oceanic trade networks altered the economic, political, and social systems of states over time.

Specifically, Unit 4 tests will cover:

• The diffusion and development of technologies and navigational techniques that allowed for trans-oceanic travel.
• State support and motivations for trans-oceanic trade.
• The Columbian Exchange.
• European contact with the American Empires of the Aztecs and the Inca.
• Gold, silver mining, and cash crops.
• Forced labor and American Indian slavery.
• Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and the Indian Ocean Slave Trade.
• Cultural diffusion and syncretism in the Americas.
• European rivalries.
• Triangular trade.
• Colonial resistance.
• Changes in social hierarchies.

Unit 5 examines revolutions between 1450 and 1750. Students will need to be familiar with the Enlightenment, political revolutions of the era, and the Industrial Revolution. To master this unit, students should understand the extent to which industrialism brought about change during the period.

Specifically, Unit 5 tests will cover:

• Major ideas of the Enlightenment.
• The cause and effects of the American Revolution, the New Zealand Wars, the French Revolution, Bolivar Revolutions, Creole Revolutions, and the Haitian Revolution.
• Italian and German Unification.
• Balkan and Ottoman Nationalism.
• Industrial Revolution.
• Agricultural and technological improvements.
• The rise of the factory system.
• The Second Industrial Revolution.
• Migration: the push and pull factors of industrialism.
• The role of states in shaping the industrial economy.
• The rise of big business/industrial capitalism/international corporations.
• Consumerism and mass culture.
• Calls for economic and labor reforms.
• Changes in family and social roles.

Unit 6 examines the consequences of industrialism between 1750 and 1900. Students will need to be familiar with how industrialism led to new migration patterns, imperialism, and increased international trade. To master this unit, students should understand the significant role imperialism played in shaping much of the world during the period.

Specifically, Unit 6 tests will cover:

• Cultural, religious, and economic motives for imperialism.
• Imperialism in Africa, Scramble for Africa, Berlin Conference.
• Imperialism in South Asia, the British East India Company.
• Imperialism in East Asia, China’s sphere influence, Boxer Rebellion, Japan’s empire.
• Dutch, French, and British imperialism in Southeast Asia, Dutch East India Company.
• British in Australia and New Zealand, the Māori.
• US Imperialism, Manifest Destiny, the Indian Wars, Spanish-American War, Monroe Doctrine, and the Roosevelt Corollary.
• Nationalist movements as a response to European imperialism.
• Effects of technological advances, railroads, steamships, and telegraph.
• Cash crops, precious metals/stones, and raw materials, the emergence of economic imperialism.
• Labor, Migration, and Urbanization. Asian contract laborers, slavery, indentured servitude, penal colonies. Push and pull factors.
• Ethnic enclaves, nativism, and immigration restrictions in the United States.
• Increased standards of living.

Unit 7 examines global conflicts during the 20^th century. Students will need to be familiar with the causes and effects of shifting balances of power, such as the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and how industrialism affected the scale of warfare in the 20^th century. To master this unit, students should know the significant factors that led to global conflicts.

Specifically, Unit 7 tests will cover:

• Communism in Russia and China, the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Turkification, Mexican Revolution.
• Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
• Causes for World War I: militarism, alliances, imperialism, and nationalism.
• Allied and Central Powers.
• Industrialized warfare in WWI: poison gas, machine guns, tanks, trench warfare, airplanes, U-boats.
• WWI as a total war.
• The Paris Peace Conference, Fourteen Points, League of Nations, Treaty of Versailles (1919).
• Government responses to the Great Depression.
• Joseph’s Stalin’s Five Year Plan, the rise of fascism in Italy and Spain, and repressive regimes in Brazil.
• Beginnings of decolonization and anti-colonialism during the interwar period, mandate system, satyagraha movement, anti-colonial movements in the interwar period.
• Causes of World War II, Weimar Republic, Nazism, German-Austrian Unification, Axis Powers, the Third Reich, Munich Agreement.
• Mukden Incident and the Japanese invasion of mainland China, Pearl Harbor.
• American isolationism, the Battle of Britain, D-Day invasion.
• Nuremberg laws, Final Solution, Holocaust.
• US drops atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
• Armenian Genocide, Influenza epidemic of 1918, Rwandan genocide, Bosnian genocide, Yugoslavia’s balkanization, genocide in Darfur.

Unit 8 examines global conflicts during the 20^th century. Students will need to be familiar with the effects of the Cold War in both the Eastern and Western Hemispheres. To master this unit, students should understand how decolonization and tensions between capitalist and communist states led to numerous conflicts.

Specifically, Unit 8 tests will cover:

• Rebuilding of Europe, USSR expansion in central Europe, USSR develops the atomic bomb, the US and USSR emerge as superpowers.
• The Cold War as an ideological conflict and a power struggle between capitalism and communism across the globe, Truman Doctrine, Non-Aligned Movement, Berlin Wall, Bay of Pigs, proxy wars: Korea and Vietnam.
• NATO, Warsaw Pact, nuclear proliferation, proxy wars in postcolonial states.
• Communist revolution in China, the Great Leap Forward, redistribution movements in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
• Decolonization: examples of negotiated independence and independence through armed struggles.
• Causes and effects of the Partition of India and the creation of the states of Israel and Cambodia.
• Anti-nuclear weapon movement, nonviolent resistance to power: Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela.
• Cold War ends; USSR collapses.

Unit 9 examines increased globalization during the 20^th century. Students will need to be familiar with international scientific, medical, and political responses to global problems, the spread of free-market policies, and the rise of multinational organizations and corporations. To master this unit, students should understand the positive and negative effects and discuss how science and technology have countered global problems.

Specifically, Unit 9 tests will cover:

• Malaria, tuberculosis, cholera, Ebola, HIV, as well as conditions associated with aging.
• World Health Organization, Doctors without Borders, The Green Revolution, antibiotics, birth control, and vaccines.
• Population growth, resource depletion, water scarcity, debates over global warming, Paris Agreement, Earth Day, Green Pease.
• Economic liberalization, outsourcing, and shifting manufacturing, World Trade Organization.
• Multinational corporations.
• Human Rights, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International Court of Justice, Tiananmen Square.
• Global Feminism, Negritude Movement, Liberation theology.
• Racial equality: Civil Rights Movement in the United States and the end to apartheid in South Africa.
• Modernism, consumer culture, Americanization, global brands, Bollywood, Reggae, World Cup, Olympic Games, English as international language of science and business.
• Responses to globalization: The “Battle of Seattle,” Brexit, Fair Trade Movement.
• International peacekeeping missions.
• International financial NGOs: The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.