AP®
World History 2011-12
Revisions to AP® World History focus on helping teachers manage the scope of the course, while at the same time providing students with the opportunity for deep learning. Teachers will have more freedom in designing instruction, and students will be prepared to analyze their subject and its implications for the world around them.
Because world history’s scope requires students to think on many different geographic and temporal levels, it is imperative that a college-level course prepare students to explore broad trends and global processes that may have developed over centuries, or even millennia, in various regions of the world.
View the AP World History Curriculum Framework
View a summary of the changes and the components of the AP World History Curriculum Framework
The revised AP World History course was designed by higher education faculty and high school teachers. Although the course content itself has not been substantially changed, the course is now structured around the investigation of five course themes and 19 key concepts in six chronological periods, from approximately 8000 B.C.E. to the present. The framework defines a set of shared historical thinking skills that will apply to all AP history courses and help teachers make more informed choices about appropriate ways of linking content to historical thinking skills.
The use of key concepts and themes to organize the course facilitates both chronological and thematic approaches to teaching AP World History. Given the vast nature of the subject matter, using both approaches — or even alternating between the two — often aids instruction. The key concepts support the investigation of historical developments within a chronological framework, while the course themes allow students to make crucial connections across the six historical periods.
Additionally, the limited number of key concepts makes teaching each historical period — whose duration varies from one century to many — manageable. The three to four key concepts per period define what is most essential to know about each period based upon the most current historical research in world history. By framing historical processes and developments beyond a perceived list of facts, events and dates, the key concepts help teachers and students understand, organize and prioritize historical developments within each period.
The framework uses an outline to clearly explain the depth of knowledge required for each key concept. By focusing the key concepts on global processes rather than on specific historical facts or events, teachers are free to choose examples that interest them or their students to demonstrate the concept. Throughout the framework, possible examples of historical content are provided in parentheses as an illustration or context for the key concept, but they are not required features of the course or required knowledge for the exam. This way, for each concept, teachers may use the parenthetical content or their own specific, detailed historical examples to help students develop depth-of-content knowledge and historical thinking skills. While students will need to be able to draw upon detailed, illustrative and factual historical knowledge to be successful in the revised AP World History course and exam, the updated framework provides direction and opportunities to do this more selectively and in greater depth.
The new framework gives teachers the flexibility to teach each key concept in a variety of ways, providing greater options in designing instruction. Overall, the changes to AP World History sharpen the focus of the course by developing students’ capacity and ability to think and reason in a deeper, more systematic way, better preparing them for subsequent college courses.
Parallel changes to AP U.S. History and AP European History are also planned for coming years, and will be announced at least two years before they will be implemented. Through the introduction of key concepts and common historical thinking skills into each course, there will be an appropriate degree of alignment across the three AP history subjects.
For more information about the historical thinking skills, follow the link below:
AP® World History Exam Information
The AP World History community has expressed concern about the document recently posted on AP Central entitled, “Sample Exam Questions With Commentaries, 2011-2012.” This document was posted in an effort to provide assessment examples to AP teachers as they begin to consider revisions to their own courses in anticipation of the 2011-12 course changes, so that teachers could see the direct connection between the Curriculum Framework and the corresponding AP Exam. As stated in the publication, “The following 13 multiple-choice questions and the five free-response questions offer a first look at some of the types of questions that may appear on the revised AP World History Exam.” It is clear from your feedback that multiple free-response questions that require essay writing are valued by the AP teaching community. Accordingly, further work will be done on the proposed free response questions, and a revised exam description will be provided to AP teachers in early 2011.
Because the document “Sample Exam Questions With Commentaries, 2011-2012” containing preliminary exam information has proven to be inconsistent with your feedback, we have removed it altogether from the web site and will not release further AP World History Exam information until the final specifications are ready for release. Please accept our apologies for the confusion and concern that this document generated, and know that your feedback has been heard such that further revisions will be made to the proposed exam design. The AP Program will provide AP World History teachers with full details regarding the revised exam by early 2011.
Note that the Curriculum Framework, which remains posted, is accurate and final, and we believe, based on the feedback hundreds of college and high school faculty have provided, that it represents a profound improvement in the support we seek to provide teachers in designing a curriculum that will foster a deep, lasting knowledge and practice of world history.
For any additional questions or comments related to the 2011–2012 revisions to AP World History, please contact the AP Program.
Beginning in May 2012, the AP World History Exam will assess the key concepts, course themes and skills described on this site.
The revised exam will remain consistent with the current exam in length and overall structure, and will continue to have both multiple-choice and free-response questions.
As the test development process continues during the next two years, teachers will be provided with more details on the revised exam’s specific question types, as well as sample questions. A complete practice exam will be available before the beginning of the 2011–12 academic year. Please see the timeline for more information about the availability of these resources.