Every AP® student wants to know if the AP® course that they are interested in taking is difficult or not. So, if you are just getting started on the AP® World History review process, you are probably beginning to ask yourself, “Is AP® World History Hard?” It’s a common question. That doesn’t mean that it’s easy to find a straightforward answer, however.

This AP® World History review covers everything from the percentage of students have received a score of 5 in recent to the next steps you’ll need to take if you have signed up for the course yet.

So, let’s get started!

By the Numbers

Before we get too deep into the nitty-gritty details of AP® World History difficulty, we have to get this out of the way: AP® World History is a very difficult exam. Many students assume that the hardest AP® exams have to do with the sciences, but AP® World History has one of the lowest passing percentages of all of the AP® courses offered by the College Board.

Let’s take a look at these numbers:

Those are the grade distributions for the years 2010 through 2015. As you can see, only 6.6 percent of people earned a five in the year 2015, while 18.0 percent of the APUSH test takers received a score of 1 on the exam for the same year. The mean score for all the years mentioned above comes to 2.60.

In other words, AP® World History difficulty ranks up there among the lowest grade distributions among all the AP® course listings. To make things a little worse, it has become increasingly difficult to earn a high score on the exam, with scores of 5 on the decline and score of 3 on the rise.

Try not to get too scared off by the AP® World History exam, though. You may not know the exact year that Christopher Columbus was born or the total number of treaties signed by Winston Churchill, but that doesn’t mean you can’t score that 5 on the AP® World History exam. In fact, pure memorization is not a highly desirable skill if you want to ace the exam.

Understanding how the course and exam works and operates is going to be your key to conquering the AP® World History review process. That and making use of a high-quality AP® World History study guide or two. But before you do this, let’s take a look at what makes the AP® World History difficulty rank so high among the courses offered by the CollegeBoard.

Why is AP® World History Difficult?

One of the primary reasons that AP® World History ranks so is that there is just a massive amount of information out there. The entirety of world history cannot be understood in a lifetime, let alone a course that you are trying to take advantage of during your high school years.

To make matters even trickier, there are quite a few “Key Concepts” that the good people at the College Board want you to consider and remember when it comes to exam day. Here is how they have broken down the course in terms of time period and key concept:

Period 1 – Technological and Environmental Transformations, c. 8000 BCE to c. 600 BCE

Key Concept 1.1 Big Geography and the Peopling of the Earth
Key Concept 1.2 The Neolithic Revolution and Early Agricultural Societies
Key Concept 1.3 The Development and Interactions of Early Agricultural, Pastoral, and Urban Societies

Period 2 – Organization and Reorganization of Human Societies, c. 600 BCE to c. 600 CE

Key Concept 2.1 The Development and Codification of Religious and Cultural Traditions
Key Concept 2.2 The Development of States and Empires
Key Concept 2.3 Emergence of Transregional Networks of Communication and Exchange

Period 3 – Regional and Transregional Interactions, c. 600 CE to c. 1450 CE

Key Concept 3.1 Expansion and Intensification of Communication and Exchange Networks
Key Concept 3.2 Continuity and Innovation of State Forms and Their Interactions
Key Concept 3.3 Increased Economic Productive Capacity and Its Consequences

Period 4 – Global Interactions, c. 1450 CE to c. 1750 CE

Key Concept 4.1 Globalizing Networks of Communication and Exchange
Key Concept 4.2 New Forms of Social Organization and Modes of Production
Key Concept 4.3 State Consolidation and Imperial Expansion

Period 5 – Industrialization and Global Integration, c. 1750 CE to c. 1900 CE

Key Concept 5.1 Industrialization and Global Capitalism
Key Concept 5.2 Imperialism and Nation-State Formation
Key Concept 5.3 Nationalism, Revolution, and Reform
Key Concept 5.4 Global Migration

Period 6 – Accelerating Global Change and Realignments, c. 1900 CE to present

Key Concept 6.1 Science and the Environment
Key Concept 6.2 Global Conflicts and their Consequences
Key Concept 6.3 New Conceptualizations of Global Economy, Society, & Culture

If you can’t tell by reading this, there is a lot going on here. First, you are going to have to remember information that dates all the way back to prehistoric times, all the way back to around 8,000 BCE. As you progress through each era, you will also have to consider the central themes associated with the time period you are covering. As you can see, these range anywhere from nationalism to economic production.

In other words, both the memorization of details and the use of critical-thinking skills are necessary parts of this course. This is why every good AP® World History study guide is going to contain both detailed information on any given topic, but also relate the event/person/place to the bigger picture that’s out there. Take a look at this AP® World History review on Mesopotamia for an excellent example of how this should look.

Speaking of what makes AP® World History a difficulty feat to overcome, we should discuss the DBQ for a second. Even mentioning the letters DBQ can cause a sense of panic in even the most stalwart AP® World History student. DBQ stands for Document Based Question and is arguably the most difficult component of the AP® World History exam. The DBQ is in the essay-writing section of the exam, where students are expected to write a clear and concise essay that revolves around ten to twelve primary-source documents.

The point of the DBQ is for you to show that you understand the complexities of the historical narrative being discussed. We are not going to lie to you, this is very difficult. You will have to consider argument, essay structure, evidence, and deep thinking all while under the stress of the clock.

Again, just because the DBQ s extremely difficult, it doesn’t mean that it is impossible to overcome. It also doesn’t mean that the AP® World History course is not worth taking. It totally is.

If you want to succeed at scoring that 5 on the exam, the first thing you are going to want to do is to get a solid understanding of how the exam itself is structured and the expectations that come with it.

Exam Structure

Here is how the exam breaks down:

Section I — Part A: Multiple Choice — 55 questions; 55 minutes

Section I — Part B: Short-Answer Questions — 4 questions; 50 minutes

Section II — Part A: Document-Based Question — 1 question; 55 minutes (includes a reading period with a suggested time of 15 minutes)

Section II — Part B: Long Essay Question — 1 question (chosen from a pair); 35 minutes

If you haven’t already done so, look through the AP® World History Course Overview and the AP® World History Course and Exam Description. These two documents clarify everything you’re going to need to know about how both the AP® World History course and exam are structured. They are also particularly nice because they each contain example questions that mimic those that will show up on the exam. So, make sure you check these out if you’re thinking about taking the course.

There are two primary parts of the AP® World History exam: the multiple-choice/short-answer section and the DBQ/long essay section.

The multiple-choice section consists of 55 questions where you will be expected to examine excerpts from various historical works and answer corresponding questions regarding the piece. They are stimulus based, meaning that you will have to think critically about the information you are provided and work out the answer for yourself. In other words, the answer will not be obvious and will require a bit of thought. Part of the point of this is to get students to think like a professional historian. You will be given just under one hour (55 minutes) to complete this portion.

Unlike the DBQ or the long essay, the short-answer questions do not require a thesis. They will require you to provide examples of a certain theme of series of events and a quick explanation of how your examples make sense. These vary quite e a bit, so make sure that you’ve become familiar with how these operate before you show up to take the exam.

Here’s an example question for the short-answer section of the exam:

Answer parts A and B.

Many historians argue that the end of the Cold War (1889-1991) was a turning point in world history.

A) Provide TWO pieces of evidence that support this argument and explain how each piece supports the argument.

B) Provide ONE piece of evidence that undermines this argument and explain how it undermines the argument.

We have already mentioned that the DBQ section of the AP® World History exam is one of the most difficult tasks set out by the College Board. The DBQ consists of a question, a set of primary source documents (never more than 7), and only 55 minutes to come up with a well written, clear and coherent essay response. The essay that you come up with will revolve around several primary-source documents that range between memoirs, political cartoons, magazine articles, etc.

Structure and argument are just as essential as understanding the events of the past and the ways that these documents relate to those events. So, being a strong writer is a highly desirable skill since your answer will have to be unique, well-written, and concise.

You will probably feel like a rock star upon completing the DBQ, but don’t get too excited because your AP® World History ordeal will not be over yet. After completing the DBQ section, students will next work on Long Essay portion of the exam. Just like the DBQ, you will have to create your own argument and organize the information into a complete essay-long thought process. You will have more freedom with these questions, however, and be able to use your vast knowledge of the past you provide whichever examples you deem most appropriate. Also like the short-answer questions, these can vary in terms of topic and time period, so study hard and get familiar with them. Here’s an example Long Essay question:

“Using specific examples, analyze continuities and changes in the relationship between labor systems and social hierarchies in the period circa 600 C.C. to circa 1750 C.E.”

Content

Saying that there is a lot of content to the AP® World History course and exam is an understatement. Remember this course covers all of the history of the entire world throughout the entire time human beings have occupied it. Wow.

The College Board has broken the course down into six major time periods in order to make this massive amount of information more digestible. Here they are:

Notice the percentages next to each period of time; these are the numbers by which each era will be represented on the test. Get to know them and study accordingly. Again, there is a ton of info in here.

There is a trick, however.

If you understand the Key Themes mentioned in the Why is AP® World History Difficult? Section, you will acquire the skills needed to analyze just about any information thrown at you during the course or exam. Check out this description of the course from the AP® World History Course Overview:

“The AP® World History course focuses on developing students’ understanding of the world history from approximately 8000 BCE to the present. This college-level course has students investigate the content of world history for significant events, individuals, developments, and processes in six historical periods, and develop and use the same thinking skills and methods (analyzing primary and secondary courses, making historical comparisons, chronological reasoning, and argumentation employed by historians when the study the past. The course also provides five themes (interaction between humans and the environment; development and interaction of cultures; state building, expansion and conflict; creation, expansion, and interaction of economic systems; development and transformation of social structures) that students explore throughout the course in order to make connections among historical developments in different times and places encompassing the five major geographical regions of the globe” Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, and Oceania..”

Whew. Did you get all of that? This description is really just a long and drawn out way of telling potential AP® World History students that there are connections between various events of the past and the course themes developed along the way. When worked on side-by-side, these qualities of the AP® World History course work in ways that don’t require students to memorize every single even that has ever occurred in the course of human events.

There are other skills required and necessary for weakening the AP® World History difficulty.

Skills Required

Unlike many other courses offered by the College Board, there are no real requirements to taking AP® World History. You just need to be able to read and be willing to work on those critical-thinking skills.

Speaking of critical-thinking skills and history courses, this is something you are going to want to keep in mind when considering the skills necessary to succeed. If you are one of those people who has a photographic memory, remembering everything you’ve ever seen, you will not succeed at this course without the desire to put that skill set in combination with deep thinking, analysis and contextualization.

On the other hand, if you know how to critically view the world around you, but cannot remember what you did yesterday, you are going to need to work on those memorization skills.

Scoring a 5 on the AP® World History exam requires both remembering information and thinking about that information by using historical-thinking skills. The AP® World History Course and Exam Description lays out the most important of these skills as:

• Interpretation
• Comparison
• Contextualization
• Synthesis
• Causation
• Patterns of Continuity and Change Over time
• Periodization Argumentation

The AP® World History review process may seem a bit daunting at this point, thinking about all of the information built into the AP® World History course. But try not the worry. Like we mentioned above, students who work on these historical-thinking skills alongside remembering the details of the past are actually working on proactive solutions to thinking about the past.

When it comes to test day, you may not remember every single detail about the Mongol Empire, but if you have polished your ability to contextualize, synthesize, etc. you should be able to view any question thrown out at you a breeze.

Is AP® World History Worth It?

Simply put the AP® World History course and exam is most definitely worth it. We know that we have spent this entire AP® World History study guide telling you how difficult the course and exam are, but all of the skills that you work on for this course will prove utterly helpful in the years to come.

First, World History will prove helpful through your high school years, your college days, and if you choose (most especially) any time you might spend in grad school. Everything you learn in this course will help you out in the long run.

All of those historical-thinking skills that you will need to develop for this course are actually hugely desirable for nearly every course you will ever have to take again. Thinking of English 101? You already will know how to write concisely, with elegance, and with originality. Physics? After taking this course, you will know how to observe the events of the world around you, package them into logical categories, and create systems of knowledge around those categories. This is fundamentally how physics works.

Another excellent reason to take AP® World History is that it will strengthen those writing and argumentation skills. Not only will this prove useful in a college-level classroom, but this will help you out in the workplace as well. Clear and concise writing is a highly desirable trait in nearly every work situation. On top of that you will be able to express yourself with confidence and authority in anything you do.

Just in the nature of studying the past, you will also begin to understand the present. You will better understand what it means to live in a complex, yet interconnected world. You will gain a better understanding of contemporary global politics, while being able to fully understand how and why we have gotten to where we are.

On top of all of these great intellectual qualities that come with taking the AP® World History course, passing the AP® World History exam will save you money. College expenses easily rack up, so if you can lower the cost of getting a Bachelor degree, you should definitely consider it. World History really is a hard exam, but it is definitely a worthwhile venture.

Next Steps

There’s no better time than now to begin thinking about taking the AP® World History course and exam. Before you dive right in, it’s not a bad idea to take a look at some of the textbooks that are out there.

Once you’ve decided that you want to take the exam, the best thing to do is ask your school about taking the AP® World History course. Even though there are no requirements from the College Board, that doesn’t mean your school doesn’t have their own expectations. Check to ensure that you’ve got all your ground covered well in advance if you want to take this course at your school.

If your school does not officially offer an AP® World History class, you may be able to work with administrators and history teachers for an independent study course. Chances are that your school offers World History in some form or another, so you may be able to discuss the possibility of doing a Direct Study or working closely with a history teacher on taking the AP® World History exam. Make sure you give anybody you ask plenty of time to prepare.

On top of these options, there is always creating your own study routine with or without outside help and taking the exam anyways. If you choose this route, work with an excellent AP® World History study guide like Albert.io and stick to a solid study schedule.

Yes, AP® World History is one of the most difficult course and exams offered by the College Board, but the experiences and skills that you gain from taking this course outweigh the negatives. With a bit of hard work and thinking through the past in a deep and critical way, you will for sure be able to score that 5 when it comes to exam day.

What do you think, is AP® World History difficult? Let us know about your experiences with the whole AP® World History review process and what has worked and not worked out for you.

If you found this helpful, be sure to also check out our AP® World History FAQ here.

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