AP-WHM
Coming Soon
Expected availability: Summer 2026
This course is in active development. Preview the scope below and create a free account to be notified the moment it goes live.
AP® World History Modern
The AP World History: Modern certification exam assesses mastery of global developments from 1200‑1900, emphasizing thematic analysis, source evaluation, and comparative reasoning across empires, trade networks, and revolutions.
195
Minutes
60
Questions
3/5
Passing Score
$98
Exam Cost
Who Should Take This
High‑school juniors and seniors preparing for college‑level world history, or adult learners seeking credentialed proof of expertise, find this exam aligns with their academic or professional aspirations. They should possess solid foundational knowledge of pre‑modern and modern eras, be comfortable with primary‑source analysis, and aim to demonstrate analytical writing skills for DBQs and essays.
What's Covered
1
All nine units of the AP World History: Modern course framework (College Board, effective 2019-present), covering c. 1200 CE to the present: Unit 1 The Global Tapestry
2
, Unit 2 Networks of Exchange
3
, Unit 3 Land-Based Empires
4
, Unit 4 Transoceanic Interconnections
5
, Unit 5 Revolutions
6
, Unit 6 Consequences of Industrialization
7
, Unit 7 Global Conflict
8
, Unit 8 Cold War and Decolonization
9
, Unit 9 Globalization
What's Included in AccelaStudy® AI
Adaptive Knowledge Graph
Practice Questions
Lesson Modules
Console Simulator Labs
Exam Tips & Strategy
20 Activity Formats
Course Outline
80 learning goals
1
Unit 1: The Global Tapestry (c. 1200-1450)
4 topics
Developments in East Asia
- Identify the key political, economic, and cultural achievements of the Song Dynasty including the civil service examination system, commercialization of agriculture, and innovations in printing and gunpowder technology.
- Explain how Neo-Confucianism and Buddhism shaped governance, social hierarchies, and cultural life in East Asia during the period c. 1200-1450.
Developments in Dar al-Islam and South/Southeast Asia
- Describe the political fragmentation of the Abbasid Caliphate and the rise of regional Islamic states while identifying the cultural and scientific contributions of the Islamic Golden Age.
- Explain the establishment of the Delhi Sultanate and the coexistence of Hindu, Buddhist, and Islamic traditions in South and Southeast Asia, including the role of the Khmer Empire.
State Building in the Americas, Africa, and Europe
- Identify the political structures, economic systems, and cultural practices of the Maya, Aztec (Mexica), and Inca civilizations and describe how each adapted to its geographic environment.
- Describe the political and economic organization of African states including Great Zimbabwe, the Mali Empire, and Swahili coast city-states, identifying how trade networks sustained their growth.
- Identify the key features of European feudalism, the role of the Catholic Church in political and cultural life, and the effects of the Crusades on trade and cross-cultural exchange.
Comparisons in the Period 1200-1450
- Compare and contrast the methods of political legitimacy, economic organization, and cultural integration used by states in at least three world regions during the period c. 1200-1450.
- Assess how geography, religion, and trade shaped the development of diverse political systems across Afro-Eurasia and the Americas during the period c. 1200-1450.
2
Unit 2: Networks of Exchange (c. 1200-1450)
4 topics
The Silk Roads and Mongol Empire
- Identify the major land-based Silk Road routes, the goods exchanged, and the key intermediary peoples and states that facilitated long-distance overland trade between East Asia and the Mediterranean.
- Explain how the expansion of the Mongol Empire and the Pax Mongolica facilitated trade, cultural exchange, and technological diffusion across Eurasia during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
Indian Ocean and Trans-Saharan Trade
- Explain how monsoon winds, the spread of Islam, and merchant diasporas facilitated Indian Ocean trade connecting East Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, South Asia, and Southeast Asia.
- Identify the commodities, camel caravan infrastructure, and cultural exchanges that characterized trans-Saharan trade linking West Africa to North Africa and the Mediterranean.
Cultural and Environmental Effects of Trade
- Explain how trade networks facilitated the spread of religions, languages, literary traditions, and artistic styles across Afro-Eurasia during the period c. 1200-1450.
- Analyze the environmental and demographic consequences of interregional exchange, including the spread of the Bubonic Plague, crop transfers, and deforestation resulting from expanded agricultural and trade activity.
Comparison of Trade Networks 1200-1450
- Compare and contrast the Silk Roads, Indian Ocean network, and trans-Saharan routes in terms of goods exchanged, cultural diffusion, and environmental consequences during the period c. 1200-1450.
- Construct an argument evaluating the relative significance of trade networks in promoting cultural integration versus reinforcing regional identities during the period c. 1200-1450.
3
Unit 3: Land-Based Empires (c. 1450-1750)
3 topics
Expansion of Land-Based Empires
- Identify the territorial expansion strategies and military technologies used by the Ottoman, Safavid, Mughal, Qing, and Russian empires during the period c. 1450-1750.
- Explain how gunpowder technology, cavalry forces, and strategic alliances enabled the rapid expansion of land-based empires across Eurasia.
Governments and Belief Systems of Land-Based Empires
- Describe the bureaucratic structures, taxation systems, and methods of political legitimacy employed by land-based empires including the devshirme system, Mughal mansabdari, and Qing banner system.
- Explain the role of state-sponsored religion, including Sunni and Shia Islam, Sikhism, and syncretic traditions, in legitimizing political authority and managing diverse populations within land-based empires.
- Analyze how land-based empires used monumental architecture, legal codes, and patronage of arts and religion to consolidate power and project imperial authority.
Comparison in Land-Based Empires
- Compare and contrast the methods of administration, military organization, and treatment of ethnic and religious minorities across at least three land-based empires of the period c. 1450-1750.
- Construct an argument evaluating whether gunpowder technology or bureaucratic innovation was the more significant factor in the success of land-based empires during the period c. 1450-1750.
4
Unit 4: Transoceanic Interconnections (c. 1450-1750)
5 topics
Technology, Exploration, and Maritime Empires
- Identify the maritime technologies (astrolabe, magnetic compass, lateen sail, caravel) and knowledge transfers that enabled transoceanic exploration in the period c. 1450-1750.
- Explain the economic, religious, and political motivations that drove Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, British, and French exploration and how state sponsorship shaped overseas expansion.
Columbian Exchange
- Describe the transfer of crops, animals, and diseases between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres and identify the major demographic consequences of the Columbian Exchange.
- Analyze how the Columbian Exchange transformed agricultural practices, diet, population growth, and ecosystems on a global scale during the period c. 1450-1750.
Maritime Empires and Mercantilism
- Describe how the Portuguese, Spanish, and Dutch established maritime empires through trading-post networks, colonial settlements, and control of key sea routes.
- Explain how mercantilist policies, joint-stock companies, and colonial administration sustained European maritime empires and integrated global trade networks.
Challenges to Power and Changing Social Hierarchies
- Describe the casta system in Spanish colonies, the development of the Atlantic slave trade, and the various coerced labor systems (encomienda, mita, indentured servitude) of the period c. 1450-1750.
- Analyze the internal resistance movements and external rivalries that challenged both maritime and land-based empires, including slave revolts, indigenous uprisings, and imperial competition.
Continuity and Change 1450-1750
- Evaluate how transoceanic trade reshaped social hierarchies based on race, ethnicity, gender, and labor status across the Americas, Africa, and Europe.
- Construct an argument assessing the extent to which transoceanic interconnections represented a fundamental transformation versus a continuation of earlier Afro-Eurasian exchange patterns.
5
Unit 5: Revolutions (c. 1750-1900)
4 topics
The Enlightenment and Political Revolutions
- Identify the key Enlightenment thinkers (Locke, Rousseau, Voltaire, Montesquieu) and describe their ideas about natural rights, the social contract, separation of powers, and religious tolerance.
- Contextualize the causes, key events, and outcomes of the American, French, Haitian, and Latin American revolutions within the broader framework of Enlightenment principles and local grievances.
- Compare the extent to which revolutionary ideals of liberty, equality, and self-governance were realized across at least three revolutionary movements in the period c. 1750-1900.
Industrialization: Origins, Spread, and Technology
- Identify the geographic, economic, and technological factors that enabled industrialization to begin in Britain, including access to coal, iron, capital, labor, and the factory system.
- Explain how industrialization spread from Britain to the United States, continental Europe, Japan, and Russia, identifying the role of state policies, technology transfer, and resource availability.
- Describe how the railroad, steamship, and telegraph transformed transportation and communication, and explain how governments promoted industrialization through tariffs, infrastructure, and legal reforms.
Economic and Social Effects of Industrialization
- Identify the major intellectual and social reactions to industrialization including Luddism, utopian socialism, Marxism, and the formation of labor unions and cooperative movements.
- Explain how industrialization transformed social structures through urbanization, the emergence of new social classes, changes in family life, and shifting gender roles.
- Analyze how different ideological responses to industrialization (liberalism, socialism, Marxism, conservatism) reflected competing visions for the organization of industrial society.
Continuity and Change in the Revolutionary Age
- Construct an argument evaluating the extent to which the Industrial Revolution represented a radical break with or a continuation of pre-industrial economic and social patterns.
- Integrate evidence from multiple regions to argue whether political revolution or industrial revolution had a greater impact on global power structures during the period c. 1750-1900.
6
Unit 6: Consequences of Industrialization (c. 1750-1900)
4 topics
Rationales and Expansion of Imperialism
- Identify the economic, ideological, and political rationales for imperialism including Social Darwinism, the civilizing mission, national prestige, and the need for raw materials and markets.
- Contextualize the Scramble for Africa, the colonization of South and Southeast Asia, and the expansion of imperial control in the Pacific within the framework of industrial-era competition.
Indigenous Responses and Economic Imperialism
- Describe the range of indigenous responses to imperialism, including armed resistance (Sepoy Rebellion, Boxer Rebellion, Zulu Wars), negotiation, and reform movements.
- Analyze how extraterritoriality, unequal treaties, spheres of influence, and economic concessions allowed industrialized nations to dominate non-colonized regions such as China, the Ottoman Empire, and Persia.
Global Economic Development and Migration
- Analyze how the extraction of raw materials, cultivation of cash crops, and development of export economies restructured the global economic system and created patterns of dependency during the period c. 1750-1900.
- Identify the push and pull factors that drove large-scale migration during the period c. 1750-1900, including indentured servitude, diaspora communities, famine, and economic opportunity.
- Assess how migration led to cultural blending, discrimination, ethnic enclaves, and the reshaping of labor markets in receiving societies during the imperial age.
Causation in the Imperial Age
- Evaluate the effectiveness of different forms of indigenous resistance and adaptation in preserving sovereignty and cultural identity under imperial pressure.
- Construct an argument analyzing the relative importance of economic, ideological, and technological factors in driving European imperialism during the period c. 1750-1900.
7
Unit 7: Global Conflict (c. 1900-present)
3 topics
Shifting Power and World War I
- Analyze how Japanese modernization (Meiji Restoration) and the decline of the Qing and Ottoman empires shifted the global balance of power at the turn of the twentieth century.
- Identify the long-term and immediate causes of World War I, including alliance systems, imperial rivalries, nationalism, militarism, and the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
- Describe trench warfare, total war, and the impact of new military technologies (machine guns, poison gas, tanks, aircraft) on the conduct and scale of World War I.
Interwar Period and World War II
- Explain the causes and global effects of the Great Depression, including economic nationalism, protectionist tariffs, and the collapse of international trade during the interwar period.
- Analyze how the Treaty of Versailles, the League of Nations mandate system, and unresolved nationalist aspirations created instability that contributed to future conflicts.
- Explain how the rise of fascism, policies of appeasement, Japanese imperial expansion, and the failure of collective security led to the outbreak of World War II.
Mass Atrocities and Causation in Global Conflict
- Describe the major theaters and turning points of World War II and interpret sources related to mass atrocities including the Armenian Genocide, the Holocaust, and the Rwandan Genocide.
- Construct an argument evaluating the relative significance of nationalism, economic instability, and failures of international diplomacy as causes of global conflict in the twentieth century.
8
Unit 8: Cold War and Decolonization (c. 1900-present)
4 topics
Origins and Structure of the Cold War
- Explain how the outcomes of World War II, including the emergence of the United States and Soviet Union as superpowers and the weakening of European colonial empires, set the stage for the Cold War.
- Identify the key structures of Cold War rivalry including NATO, the Warsaw Pact, proxy wars, the nuclear arms race, and the policy of containment.
Effects of the Cold War and Spread of Communism
- Analyze how the Cold War shaped global politics, economics, and culture through the space race, competing economic models, propaganda, and military interventions in developing nations.
- Explain how communist movements gained power in China, Cuba, Vietnam, and Korea, identifying the role of revolutionary ideology, peasant mobilization, and Cold War dynamics.
Decolonization, New States, and Global Resistance
- Describe the processes of decolonization in India, sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East, identifying the roles of nationalist leaders, nonviolent resistance, and armed struggle.
- Analyze the challenges faced by newly independent states including nation-building, ethnic conflict, Cold War interference, and the legacies of colonial borders and institutions.
- Describe global movements that challenged established power structures, including the Civil Rights Movement, anti-apartheid struggle, and feminist movements, and their transnational connections.
End of the Cold War and Causation
- Explain the factors that led to the end of the Cold War, including Gorbachev's reforms, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and assess their global consequences.
- Construct an argument evaluating the extent to which the Cold War accelerated, hindered, or shaped the process of decolonization and nation-building in the post-1945 world.
9
Unit 9: Globalization (c. 1900-present)
3 topics
Technology, Disease, and the Environment
- Identify how advances in communication technology, the internet, and the Green Revolution transformed global exchange of information, agricultural production, and economic interconnection.
- Explain how globalization facilitated both advances in public health and the rapid spread of diseases such as HIV/AIDS and pandemic influenza, and describe international responses to these crises.
- Analyze how industrialization and globalization contributed to environmental challenges including climate change, pollution, and deforestation, and evaluate the tensions between development and sustainability.
Economics, Institutions, and Culture in the Global Age
- Explain how free-trade agreements, multinational corporations, and the WTO have shaped the global economic system and created both opportunities and inequalities.
- Describe the roles of international institutions (United Nations, IMF, World Bank, NGOs) in addressing global challenges including conflict resolution, poverty reduction, and humanitarian aid.
- Analyze how the spread of popular culture, mass media, and consumer goods has led to both cultural homogenization and cultural resistance in the era of globalization.
Resistance and Continuity in a Globalized World
- Explain the motivations behind anti-globalization movements, religious fundamentalism, and nationalist backlash, identifying how these responses challenge the prevailing global order.
- Construct an argument evaluating the extent to which globalization has created a more interconnected and equitable world versus perpetuating or deepening existing inequalities and conflicts.
- Synthesize evidence across all nine units to evaluate the extent to which the period c. 1200-present represents increasing global integration or persistent regional divergence.
Scope
Included Topics
- All nine units of the AP World History: Modern course framework (College Board, effective 2019-present), covering c. 1200 CE to the present: Unit 1 The Global Tapestry (8-10%), Unit 2 Networks of Exchange (8-10%), Unit 3 Land-Based Empires (12-15%), Unit 4 Transoceanic Interconnections (12-15%), Unit 5 Revolutions (12-15%), Unit 6 Consequences of Industrialization (12-15%), Unit 7 Global Conflict (8-10%), Unit 8 Cold War and Decolonization (8-10%), Unit 9 Globalization (8-10%).
- Six course themes applied across all units: Humans and the Environment, Cultural Developments and Interactions, Governance, Economic Systems, Social Interactions and Organization, and Technology and Innovation.
- Six AP historical thinking skills: Developments and Processes, Sourcing and Situation, Claims and Evidence in Sources, Contextualization, Making Connections (comparison, causation, continuity and change over time), and Argumentation.
- Exam-aligned content including multiple-choice stimulus analysis, short-answer response, document-based question (DBQ) writing with 7-document analysis, and long essay question (LEQ) argumentation across three time period options.
Not Covered
- Events and developments before c. 1200 CE, which are covered by AP World History courses prior to the Modern redesign.
- Granular details of individual battles, specific dates of minor events, and biographical minutiae of historical figures not central to the exam framework.
- Content from other AP History courses (AP US History, AP European History) except where cross-referenced in the AP World History framework.
- Current events analysis and post-2020 geopolitical developments not yet incorporated into the College Board exam framework.
Official Exam Page
Learn more at College Board
AP-WHM is coming soon
Adaptive learning that maps your knowledge and closes your gaps.
Create Free Account to Be Notified