The purpose of AP World History is to develop a greater understanding of the evolution of global processes and contacts, in interaction with different types of human societies. This understanding is advanced through a combination of selective factual knowledge and appropriate analytical skills. The course highlights the nature of changes in international frameworks and their causes and consequences, as well as comparisons among major societies. The course emphasizes relevant factual knowledge deployed in conjunction with leading interpretive issues and types of historical evidence. The course builds on an understanding of cultural, institutional, and technological precedents that, along with geography, set the human stage. Periodization, explicitly discussed, forms the organizing principle for dealing with change and continuity from that point to the present. Specific themes provide further organization to the course, along with the consistent attention to contacts among societies that form the core of world history as a field of study.

Chronological Boundaries of the Course

The course will have as its chronological frame the period from approximately 8000 B.C.E. (Foundations of World History covers the Foundations segment from 8000 B.C.E. to aprox. 600 C.E., and continues to approximately 1000 C.E.) to the present with careful preparation in terms of previous developments

An outline of the Periodization for the course with associated percentages for suggested course content is listed below.

Foundations (Covered in Foundations of World History) 14%

600‑ 1450 22% (8 weeks)

1450‑ 1750 22% (8 weeks)

1750‑ 1914 20% (8 weeks)

1914 ‑ the present 22% (8 weeks)

Themes

AP World History highlights six overarching themes that should receive approximately equal attention throughout the course beginning with the Foundations section:

1. Patterns and impact of interaction among major societies (trade, systems of international exchange, war, and diplomacy).

2. The relationship of change and continuity across the world history periods covered in this course.

3. Impact of technology and demography on people and the environment (population growth and decline, disease, manufacturing, migrations, agriculture, weaponry).

4. Systems of social structure and gender structure (comparing major features within and among societies and assessing change).

5. Cultural and intellectual developments and interactions among and within societies.

6. Changes in functions and structures of states and in attitudes toward states and political identities (political culture), including the emergence of the nation‑state (types of political organization).

The themes serve throughout the course as unifying threads, helping students to put what is particular about each period or society into a larger framework. The themes also provide ways to make comparisons over time. The interaction of themes and Periodization encourage cross‑period questions such as "To what extent have civilizations maintained their cultural and political distinctiveness over the time periods the course covers"; "Compare the justification of social inequality in 1000 with that at the end of the twentieth century"; and "Select four turning points in world history since 1000 and explain why you so designated them".

Manageable Coverage

For each time period, knowledge of major developments that illustrate or link the six thematic areas and of major civilizations in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas is expected. Knowledge of year‑to‑year political events is not required. The traditional political narrative is an inappropriate model for this course

Maximum Percentage Coverage of European History

Coverage of European history does not exceed 30% of the total course. This encourages increased coverage of topics that are important to Europe in the world and not just to Europe itself, as well as attention to areas of the world outside Europe.

Coverage of United States History

The United States is included in the course in relation to its interaction with other societies: its colonization in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, its revolution, and its expansion. The internal politics of the United States is not covered. Coverage of tile United States is limited to appropriate comparative questions and to United States involvement in global processes. Topics that focus on the second half of the twentieth century, such as the end of the Second World War, the Cold War, and the globalization of trade and culture, cannot be assessed adequately without reference to the United States.

Habits of Mind or Skills

The AP World History course addresses habits of mind or skills in two categories: 1) those addressed by any rigorous history course, and 2) those addressed by a world history course.

Four Habits of Mind are in the first category:

• Constructing and evaluating arguments: using evidence to make plausible arguments.

• Using documents and other primary data: developing the skills necessary to analyze point of view, context, and bias, and to understand and interpret information.

• Developing the ability to assess issues of change and continuity over time.

• Enhancing the capacity to handle diversity of interpretations through analysis of context, bias, and frame of reference.

Three Habits of Mind are in the second category:

• Seeing global patterns over time and space while also acquiring the ability to connect local developments to global ones and to move through levels of generalizations from the global to the particular.

• Developing the ability to compare within and among societies, including comparing societies' reactions to global processes.

• Developing the ability to assess claims of universal standards yet remaining aware of human commonalities and differences; putting culturally diverse ideas and values in historical context, not suspending judgment but developing understanding.

Every part of the AP World History Examination assesses habits of mind as well as content. For example, in the multiple‑choice section, maps, graphs, artwork, and quotations are used to judge students' ability to assess primary data, while other questions focus on evaluating arguments, handling diversity of interpretation and making comparisons among societies, drawing generalizations and understanding historical context. In the essay section of the examination, the document‑based question (DBQ) focuses on assessing students' ability to construct arguments; use primary documents; analyze point of view, context and bias; and understand the global context. The remaining two essay questions focus on global patterns over time and space and comparisons within and among societies.