
Like I said, the AP® World History exam is not about rote memorization. Instead, the AP® World History exam is all about forming a historical argument, finding its connections, and examining its consequences, which brings us to… The Skills While it’s important to know about the major events of each of these periods, like the French Revolution and the fall of Constantinople, the AP® exam will actually ask you very little about specific dates, events, or even people in history. UNIT 9 – Globalization (1900 CE – Present) UNIT 8 – Cold War and Decolonization (1900 CE – Present) UNIT 7 – Global Conflict (1900 CE – Present) UNIT 6 – Consequences of Industrialization (1750 CE – 1900 CE) UNIT 4 – Transoceanic Interconnections (1450 CE – 1750 CE) UNIT 3 – Land-Based Empires (1450 CE – 1750 CE) UNIT 2 – Networks of Exchange (1200 CE – 1450 CE) UNIT 1 – The Global Tapestry (1200 CE – 1450 CE) That’s why the College Board, conveniently, has divided the class up into 9 distinct sections, each forming anywhere from 8-15% of the exam: This means that the content of the exam starts at 1200 CE, sparing most students from the thousands of years of history in the soon-to-be-released “AP® World History: Ancient.” Still, 800 years of history is a LOT, and these past 800 years haven’t been simple. I mean, pretty much everything ever falls under “World History.” This substantial amount of information can oftentimes overwhelm students, making them think they have to memorize verbatim every single event in history, which isn’t the case at all! In fact, it’s much more civilized than that, which brings us to… The ContentĪP® World History actually recently underwent a pretty big change, becoming AP® World History: Modern. It goes without saying that AP® World History seems like a sheer overload of information.

But, it’s also important to think about why so many students do poorer than usual on the AP® World History exam.

Even more, only 55.4% of students passed (scoring a 3 or above), which is still pretty low. In 2019, only 8.6% of students scored a 5, which is undoubtedly low. “Is AP® World History easy or hard?” is a common question among students, whether you’re about to take the exam or just considering the class, and with AP® World History being one of the most popular APs® (with over 300,000 tests in 2019!), it’s tempting to see what all the hype is about.
