Your Guide to the 2024 AP World History: Modern Exam

We know that studying for your AP exams can be stressful, but Fiveable has your back! We created a study plan to help you crush your AP World History exam. This guide will continue to update with information about the 2024 exams, as well as helpful resources to help you do your best on test day. Unlock Cram Mode for access to our cram events—students who have successfully passed their AP exams will answer your questions and guide your last-minute studying LIVE! And don't miss out on unlimited access to our database of thousands of practice questions. 

Format of the 2024 AP World History: Modern Exam

Going into test day, this is the exam format to expect:

Section IA: Multiple Choice

55 Questions | 55 Minutes | 40% of Exam Score

• Questions usually appear in sets of 3–4 questions with primary and secondary sources, images, graphs, and maps.
• Students analyze historical texts, interpretations, and evidence.

Section IB: Short Answer

3 Questions | 40 Minutes | 20% of Exam Score 

• Question 1 is required, includes 1 secondary source, and focuses on the years 1200-2001.
• Question 2 is required, includes 1 primary source, and focuses on the years 1200-2001.
• Students choose between Question 3 (which focuses on the years 1200-1750) and Question 4 (which focuses on the years 1750-2001). No sources are included for either Question 3 or Question 4.

Section IIA: Document-Based Question

1 Question | 1 Hour (includes 15-minute reading period) | 25% of Exam Score

• Standard DBQ question with 7 documents that offer various perspectives on a historical development or process.
• The document-based question focuses on topics from 1450 to 2001.

Section IIB: Long Essay

1 Question | 40 Minutes | 15% of Exam Score 

• Students develop an argument supported by an analysis of historical evidence.
• 3 prompts will be presented focusing primarily on historical developments and processes in different time periods—students will choose to write.

Scoring Rubric for the 2024 Exam

Multiple Choice: Earn a point for each correct answer. There is no penalty for incorrect answers.

Short Answer Question: 1 point is received for each correct piece of information. There are three parts labeled A-C and 1 point for each part, totaling a maximum of 3 points for each short answer question.

Document-Based Question:

Thesis = 1pt

Contextualization = 1 pt

Evidence = 3 pts

• 2 pts for evidence in documents
• 1 pt for evidence beyond documents

Analysis and Reasoning = 2 pts

• 1 pt for sourcing
• 1 pt for complexity

Long Essay Question:

Thesis = 1pt

Contextualization = 1 pt

Evidence = 2 pts

Analysis and Reasoning = 2 pts

📖DBQ, LEQ, & SAQ Rubrics Points Explained

Check out our study plan below to find resources and tools to prepare for your AP World History: Modern exam.

When is the 2024 AP World Exam and How Do I Take It?

**The exam is on Wednesday, May 15, 2024, at 8:00 AM your local time—this will be a paper test at your school. **

You will have 3 hours and 15 minutes to take the exam. Unlock Cram Mode to get updates on the latest 2024 exam news. 

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How Should I Prepare for the Exam?

• First, download the AP World History Cheatsheet PDF - a single sheet that covers everything you need to know at a high level. Take note of your strengths and weaknesses!
• We've put together the study plan found below to help you study between now and May. This will cover all of the units and essay types to prepare you for your exam. Pay special attention to the units that you need the most improvement in.
• Study, practice, and review for test day with other students during our live cram sessions via Cram Mode. Cram live streams will teach, review, and practice important topics from AP courses, college admission tests, and college admission topics. These streams are hosted by experienced students who know what you need to succeed.

Pre-Work: Set Up Your Study Environment

Before you begin studying, take some time to get organized.

🖥 Create a study space.

Make sure you have a designated place at home to study. Somewhere you can keep all of your materials, where you can focus on learning, and where you are comfortable. Spend some time prepping the space with everything you need and you can even let others in the family know that this is your study space. 

📚 Organize your study materials.

Get your notebook, textbook, prep books, or whatever other physical materials you have. Also, create a space for you to keep track of review. Start a new section in your notebook to take notes or start a Google Doc to keep track of your notes. Get yourself set up!

📅 Plan designated times for studying.

The hardest part about studying from home is sticking to a routine. Decide on one hour every day that you can dedicate to studying. This can be any time of the day, whatever works best for you. Set a timer on your phone for that time and really try to stick to it. The routine will help you stay on track.

🏆 Decide on an accountability plan.

How will you hold yourself accountable to this study plan? You may or may not have a teacher or rules set up to help you stay on track, so you need to set some for yourself. First, set your goal. This could be studying for x number of hours or getting through a unit. Then, create a reward for yourself. If you reach your goal, then x. This will help stay focused.

AP World History: Modern 2024 study plan

🐎Unit 1: The Global Tapestry, c. 1200 - c. 145

Big Takeaways

Before 500 CE, many classical powers like Rome, Han China, and Gupta India dominated. However, between 500-1200, these powers fell and their regions became decentralized. By 1200, these regions are once again unifying. Europe, China, South Asia, and regional powers in Africa and the Americas are both buildings on their paths by infusing traditional religions and philosophies into their societies while also advancing economically and technologically. 

Definitely do this:

📚 Read these study guides:

• Overview of Unit 1: The Global Tapestry
• East Asia from 1200-1450
• Dar al-Islam from 1200-1450
• South and Southeast Asia from 1200-1450
• The Americas from 1200 to 1450
• Africa from 1200 to 1450
• Europe from 1200 to 1450
• Comparisons in the Period from 1200-1450

If you have more time or want to dig deeper:

• 🎥 Watch these videos:
• Southeast Asia in the Global Middle Ages: SE Asian History is World History
• Connections and Development in the Americas: Don’t forget the Western Hemisphere!
• 💎 Check out this interactive website, Virtual Plasencia, and explore a city in Spain.

🐫 Unit 2: Networks of Exchange

Big Takeaways

Before 1200, trade networks were largely local, usually between civilizations bordering each other. However, with more technological inventions allowing merchants to travel farther more efficiently, and the growing demand for goods in growing empires, trade routes began to rapidly expand.

As the routes (such as the Silk Roads) began to spread, they carried new goods and ideas with them, such as Buddhism and the development of diasporic communities where merchants settled down in different states other than their own. Knowledge began to travel faster than ever before.

Definitely do this:

📚 Read these study guides:

• Overview of Unit 2: Networks of Exchange
• 2.1 Silk Roads
• 2.2 The Mongols
• 2.3 Indian Ocean Trade Routes
• 2.4 Trans-Saharan Trade Routes
• 2.5 Cultural Effects of Trade
• 2.6 Environmental Effects of Trade
• 2.7 Comparison in Trade from 1200-1450

If you have more time or want to dig deeper:

• 💎 Check out this interactive website on the history of humans in the Indian Ocean
• 🗺 Can you identify the countries of the world? Play this game!
  • You won’t be asked to label maps on the exam, but it’s useful to know where countries are located so you can draw conclusions from their region.

🕌 Unit 3: Land-Based Empires, c. 1450 - c. 1750 CE

Big Takeaways

While the Columbian Exchange and Columbus’s Voyages captured most of the attention between 1450-1750, at the same time, around the world a number of land empires centralized. These Land Empires are meant to be a topic to compare and contrast with each other and with the Maritime Empires of Unit 4. 

Gunpowder technology was getting better, making it easier to use guns en masse. Intensification of trade routes also occurred on land, meaning that the new empires would have access to a larger pool of resources than their predecessors. 

These empires were different, but a few continuities remained. Religion and cultural ideas continued to play a role, and even spread within empires. Empires continued to be absolute, with most maintaining strict political and economic control over their domains.

Definitely do this:

📚 Read these study guides:

• Overview of Unit 3: Land-Based Empires
• Expansion of Land-Based Empires
  • Governments of Land-Based Empires
  • Belief Systems of Land-Based Empires
• Comparison in Land-Based Empires

If you have more time or want to dig deeper:

🎥 Watch these videos:

• Imperial Art and Architecture includes lots of great images of art and buildings that can be used as evidence when writing about these empires
• Changing Religions in the Early Modern World discusses the religious dimensions of this time period
• 📰A Much-Maligned Mughal looks at the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb differently, and more thoughtfully than your textbook probably does.
• 💎 Check out this podcast episode on Popular Sufism, Ottomans, and Safavids

🍕 Unit 4: Transoceanic Interconnections, c. 1450 - c. 1750 CE

Big Takeaways

Before 1450, regional trade was all the rage as the Silk Roads, Indian Ocean network, and Trans-Saharan routes exploded with more merchants and goods flowing. By 1450, Europeans were set on finding a faster route to Asia. Relying on overland trade was too slow and you couldn’t bring all that many goods with you on a camel’s back. Maritime trade would prove to be far more economically efficient.

Definitely do this:

📚 Read these study guides:

• Overview of Unit 4: Transoceanic Interconnections
• New Technologies from 1450-1750
• Exploration from 1450-1750
• Columbian Exchange
• Maritime Empires Established
• Expansion of Maritime Empires
• Resistance to European Expansion
  • Continuity and Change from 1450 to 1750

If you have more time or want to dig deeper:

• 🎥 Watch these videos:
  • Maritime Empires: Explains the growth of European overseas empires
  • Technological Innovations in the Early Modern World provides lots examples that can be used as evidence
• 📰 Graphic History of Queen Nzinga Mbandawho resisted Portuguese expansion
• 💎 Read or listen to “Cruel Ships of Prosperity” on the hardships aboard the Manila Galleons

✊🏽Unit 5: Revolutions, c. 1750 - c. 1900 CE

Big Takeaways

Some historians and textbooks consider this as one transformation: a dual revolution in industry and in politics. The political revolutions of this time period included many common people taking action against elites, along with competition among elites. Students should be familiar with three political revolutions--American, French, and Haitian--and the Latin American Wars of Independence. These revolutions produced new states. At the same time as these political revolutions in the Atlantic World, the Industrial Revolution began in Britain and spread to Western Europe, the United States, Japan. This change in a production led to enormous social and cultural changes.

Definitely do this:

📚 Read these Fiveable study guides:

• Overview of Unit 5: Revolutions
• The Enlightenment
• Revolutions from 1750-1900
• Industrialization Begins
• Spread of Industrialization
• Technology in the Industrial Age
• State-Led Industrialization
• Economic Effects of Industrialization
• Responses to Industrialization
  • Social Effects of Industrialization__
  • Continuity and Change in the Industrial Age

If you have more time or want to dig deeper:

• 🎥 Watch these videos:
  • Industrialization in World History: Explains this important development that provided context for much of the history at the time and after
  • Egalite for All: Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian Revolution tells part of the amazing story of the Haitian Revolution
• 📰 Read:
  • Throwing Off Asia is a collection of woodblock prints from Japan that show its transformation in the late Nineteenth Century who resisted Portuguese expansion
  • “Letter from Jamaica,” Simón Bolívar (1815) is an important document that expresses some of the reasons that prominent creoles in colonial Latin America desired independence from Spain

🚂 Unit 6: Consequence of Industrialization, c. 1750 - c. 1900 CE

Big Takeaways

Students will begin to learn about how Britain, France, the British and Dutch East India Companies, Portugal, and Spain all began this period with colonial possessions in the Americas, Africa, and Asia. Industrial developments allowed states to expand their power through imperialism. Native peoples in these colonies resisted imperialist expansion into their countries in a variety of ways. Unit 6 also includes global migrations. 

Definitely do this:

📚 Read these Fiveable study guides:

• Overview of Unit 6: Consequences of Industrialization
• Rationales for Imperialism
• Expansion of Imperialism
• Indigenous Responses to Imperialism
• Global Economic Development from 1750 to 1900
• Economic Imperialism
• Causes of Migration from 1750 to 1900
• Effects of Migration from 1750 to 1900
• Causation in the Imperial Age

If you have more time or want to dig deeper:

🎥 Watch these videos:

• Causes and Effects of Migration in the 19th Century: Explains the second most important topic in this unit
• The Magnificent African Cake is a classic documentary on European imperialism in Africa

📰 Read these articles:

• “Rani of Jhansi, India’s Warrior Queen Who Fought the British” from The New York Times’s “Overlooked No More” series of obituaries for people whose deaths were not reported in the paper when they occurred. Queen Laxmibai, aka the Rani of Jhansi, led some of her subjects in battle against British imperialism.
•  Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti and the Women’s Union of Abeokuta: a graphic history of Nigerian woman who resisted British imperialism

💣 Unit 7: Global Conflict

Big Takeaways

The Global Conflict Unit is the first time that we see alliances forming and when we see new interconnections of the globalized world! Make sure to look for causes and effects from all of the major conflicts and see if you can find other similar causations in contemporary world history!

Definitely do this:

📚 Read these Fiveable study guides:

• Overview of Unit 7
• Shifting Power After 1900
• Causes of World War I
• Conducting World War I
• The Economy in the Interwar Period
• Unresolved Tensions After World War I
• Causes of World War II
• Conducting World War II
• Mass Atrocities After 1900
• Causation in Global Conflict

If you have more time or want to dig deeper:

• 🎥Watch: WHAP - World Wars in World History
• 🏆Trivia - World Wars in World History
• 🎥Watch: WHAP - Unit 7 Review: Causation in Global Conflict
• 🏆Trivia - Causation in Global Conflict

🥶 Unit 8 (1900-Present) - Cold War & Decolonization  

Big Takeaways

As you probably already know, WWI was caused by a bunch of nationalism in the warring countries, increased military power due to the Industrial revolution, imperialism, and alliances. It was largely unsuccessful in solving disputes and 21 years later there was WWII. 

Both of these wars resulted in a ton of death and destruction, and most importantly, a bunch of colonies started to think for themselves. They fought in the war, after all-- why shouldn’t they be independent? 

After the war, the Soviet Union and the United States were left largely undamaged by the war, whereas Western Europe was totally destroyed. This left both of them primed to become world powers.

Definitely do this:

📚 Read these study guides:

• Overview of Unit 8
• Setting the Stage for the Cold War and Decolonization
• The Cold War
• Effects of the Cold War
• Spread of Communism After 1900
• Decolonization After 1900
• Newly Independent States
• Global Resistance to Established Order After 1900
• End of Cold War
• Causation in the Age of the Cold War and Decolonization

If you have more time or want to dig deeper:

• 🎥Watch: Crash Course - Cold War
• 🎥Watch: Crash Course - Decolonization
• 📝Read: Freemanpedia - Notes
• 📝Read: Freemanpedia - Cold War
• 📝Read: Freemanpedia - Decolonization

✈️ Unit 9 (1900-Present) - Globalization 

Big Takeaways

According to the College Board, in the last unit of the course, you'll continue your study of period c. 1900–present by investigating the causes and effects of the unprecedented connectivity of the modern world. 

Definitely do this:

📚 Read these study guides:

• Unit 9 Overview: Globalization
• 9.1 Advances in Technology and Exchange after 1900
• 9.2 Technological Advances and Limitations after 1900: Disease
• 9.3 Technological Advances: Debates about the Environment after 1900
• 9.4 Economics in the Global Age
• 9.5 Calls for Reform and Responses after 1900
• 9.6 Globalized Culture after 1900
• 9.7 Resistance to Globalization after 1900
• 9.8 Institutions Developing in a Globalized World
• 9.9 Continuity and Change in a Globalized World

📚 Review the following resources:

• Global Movements - Slides
• AP World History Unit 9 Playlist
• Global Movements

If you have more time or want to dig deeper:

AP World History Unit 9: Globalization Flashcards