Last updated: August 16, 2026
Start free practice exam →AP exams let you earn college credit, test out of an intro-level class, or both, while showing college admissions officers you can handle rigorous coursework. Most colleges and universities in the US recognize AP credit for a strong score.
AP World History: Modern covers global history from roughly 1200 CE to the present. Unlike AP US History, it deliberately avoids a single-country lens: you're expected to compare developments across multiple regions (Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, and Oceania) at the same time, which makes comparison and continuity/change-over-time reasoning the central skills of the course.
The AP World History: Modern exam runs about 3 hours and 15 minutes. Section I is 55 multiple-choice questions in 55 minutes, mostly grouped into sets of 3-4 questions tied to a shared stimulus (a map, image, chart, or text excerpt), plus three short-answer questions in 40 minutes that ask you to respond briefly using historical evidence. Section II is one Document-Based Question (DBQ) in 60 minutes (including a mandatory 15-minute reading period) and one Long Essay Question (LEQ) in 40 minutes, where you choose from three prompts covering different time periods. Multiple-choice questions count for 40% of your score and the rest is split across short answers, the DBQ, and the LEQ. Double-check timing against the current AP Course and Exam Description, since it's occasionally revised.
The course opens by surveying the major state systems already in place by 1200: Song China, the Byzantine Empire, the Delhi Sultanate, Mesoamerican and Andean societies, and West African kingdoms like Mali. Networks of Exchange then examines how these regions connected through trade (the Silk Roads, the Indian Ocean trade network, and the trans-Saharan trade routes) and how goods, religions (notably the spread of Islam and Buddhism), and diseases moved along them.
This period covers the rise of large land-based empires (the Ottoman, Safavid, Mughal, Ming/Qing, and Russian empires) and their methods of administering diverse, far-flung populations. Transoceanic Interconnections then covers the Columbian Exchange, European maritime exploration, the transatlantic slave trade, and the new labor systems (encomienda, chattel slavery, indentured servitude) that European colonization introduced in the Americas. This is one of the highest-weighted stretches of the course.
Covers the Enlightenment's influence on political revolutions (American, French, Haitian, and the Latin American independence movements) and the rise of nationalism as a political force. The Consequences of Industrialization unit examines why industrialization began in Britain, how it spread, and its social and economic consequences: new economic systems (capitalism, socialism, communism), changing gender and family roles, and the New Imperialism that industrialized powers used to colonize much of Africa and Asia.
The largest chronological block of the course. Global Conflict covers the causes and consequences of both World Wars, including the collapse of empires and the rise of totalitarian states. Cold War and Decolonization covers the bipolar US-Soviet rivalry, proxy conflicts, and the wave of decolonization across Africa and Asia after 1945. Globalization covers the post-Cold War world: economic interdependence, migration, environmental change, and the tension between global culture and resurgent nationalism and religious fundamentalism.
Because the content spans nine centuries and every inhabited continent, the exam leans heavily on skills rather than pure recall. Comparison questions ask you to identify similarities and differences between two regions or time periods. Causation questions ask you to explain why something happened and what it led to. Continuity and Change Over Time (CCOT) questions ask you to trace what stayed the same and what changed across a given span. The DBQ and LEQ almost always test one of these three reasoning skills directly, so practicing the skill matters as much as memorizing the content.
Correct Answer: A. Both were land-based empires that governed religiously diverse populations and used a system of religious tolerance to maintain stability
Explanation: The Mughal and Ottoman Empires were both large, land-based, gunpowder empires that ruled over religiously diverse populations (Hindu majorities under Muslim Mughal rule, and Christian and Jewish populations under Ottoman rule) and generally relied on a degree of religious tolerance and administrative flexibility, such as the Ottoman millet system, to govern effectively. Neither was primarily a maritime trading empire in the way, say, Portugal was, and both relied heavily on taxation and tribute from conquered territory.
Correct Answer: B. The introduction of New World crops like maize and potatoes to Afro-Eurasia, and Old World diseases devastating Indigenous American populations
Explanation: The Columbian Exchange refers to the transfer of plants, animals, people, diseases, and ideas between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres following 1492. New World crops like maize, potatoes, and tomatoes dramatically boosted food supplies (and population growth) in Afro-Eurasia, while Old World diseases like smallpox, to which Indigenous Americans had no prior immunity, caused catastrophic population collapse in the Americas, a major driver of the labor shortages that fueled the transatlantic slave trade, not its end.
Correct Answer: A. Enlightenment ideas about natural rights and popular sovereignty inspiring demands for greater political and social equality
Explanation: Enlightenment ideals about natural rights, liberty, and popular sovereignty spread widely in the late 18th century and fueled revolutionary movements in multiple regions. In France, these ideas combined with financial crisis and social inequality under the Old Regime; in Haiti (then Saint-Domingue), enslaved and free people of color drew on the same Enlightenment language of rights (and on the French Revolution itself) to demand freedom and equality, ultimately leading to the only successful large-scale slave revolt in history.
Correct Answer: B. The economic and military weakening of European colonial powers, combined with the spread of nationalist movements and new international norms about self-determination
Explanation: World War II left major European colonial powers like Britain and France economically devastated and militarily weakened, undermining their ability to hold onto overseas empires. At the same time, nationalist movements that had been building for decades gained momentum, and new international norms (including principles articulated through the newly formed United Nations) increasingly favored self-determination, together accelerating independence movements across Africa and Asia.
Correct Answer: A. The Silk Roads and Indian Ocean trade network had existed for centuries before 1200 and continued to be used, expanded, and adapted rather than replaced by new routes
Explanation: The Silk Roads and Indian Ocean trade network were both long-established systems by 1200, and the period's growth in trade came largely from expanding and adapting these existing routes (helped along by innovations like the compass and the dhow and junk ship designs) rather than inventing entirely new pathways. Transatlantic crossings by European ships didn't begin until after 1450, and overland routes like the trans-Saharan network had existed for centuries before this period as well.
A dense but thorough content review across all nine units, with an emphasis on the comparison and causation skills the exam tests directly.
Particularly useful for DBQ and LEQ writing strategy, since those two essays carry the largest share of your free-response score.
Helpful for keeping the sheer number of empires, trade networks, and revolutions organized by time period.