This Test Will Be All Multiple Choice, and Will Be Very Similar to Your Quizzes

Studying for tests in a college history course can be intimidating because of the amount of material you have to sort through. One of my goals for this class is to give you study skills you can use in not just this class, but in your future AP and college-level social studies courses. Part of what you’ll need to do for this course is figure out what study methods work best for you.

This test will be all multiple choice, and will be very similar to your quizzes.

1. Study your Reading Questions. The effort you’ve put into the weekly homework will be rewarded here -- you’ve created a set of notes over the important ideas from each chapter. Rather than reading each chapter in full again, focus your studying by reviewing your HW instead. If there are certain questions you don’t understand, go back and read your textbook for those specific topics.
2. If you haven’t read some of the chapters, take care of that ASAP. You don’t want to try to cram all the reading the night before the exam (it doesn’t work).
3. Use Mr. Jensen and Mr. Storck’s tutorials. Every Monday through Thursday, Mr. Jensen holds AP World History tutorials as part of his SCHOLAR program in the Assessment Center (the Stage by the Cafeteria) during all lunches. You can go and ask him questions about any of the material you may have trouble understanding. Additionally, you can bring your quiz Scantrons and review the questions you got wrong on the quizzes.
4. Mr. Storck is available after school on most Mondays - Thursdays and can help you with questions on the material, as well as questions about how to study.
5. Additional resources to study. Sometimes it helps to see the course material explained in a different way. Here’s a couple suggestions of places you may find helpful:
6. Crash Course World History:
7. Princeton Review, 2017 Edition - chapter on the 20th century

General Study Tips

When you study for history tests, it often helps to “do something” with the material instead of just re-reading it, so that your brain has to process the material. I have a few different suggestions you can try here.

Focus on connections. Treat history like a story--how do things connect to each other? How do certain events cause or effect other events down the road? If you can find those connections & understand them well, it will make it way easier to study than just trying to memorize a jumble of seemingly random facts.

●If you’re a visual learner, create your own study guides by making charts, tables, or timelines to compare societies and look for connections. Most of these chapters are structured around comparisons (ex. China vs. Japan vs. the Ottomans), and organizing the information into a visual can help you see the differences and similarities.

○There are several acronyms AP World teachers use to break down major themes from the course. I like SPICE (Social, Political, Interactions, Culture, Economic). Here’s an example of a SPICE Chart you could use as a template.

○Another really useful method is mind mapping, where you draw a web of concepts and events and explain how they relate to each other (example)

●If you learn best by speaking or discussing, recruit a parent, a friend, or a willing bystander and teach them world history! Studies have shown that if you can teach something to someone else, you’ll retain way more of the knowledge than if you just read it.

○ Have your parents quiz you on the key terms, or see if you can explain the answers to the questions below to them.

○Some students like to record themselves explaining the material so they can listen to it on the ride home, on the bus, while working out, etc. (Just not during the test.)

●If you like to write, you might find it helpful to try to write out explanations of your answers to the Key Questions on this study guide, or to create outlines about them.

The Entire Test in One Paragraph

This summary of these chapters comes from the College Board’s official overview of the topics on the AP exam. As you read this, think about how the information you’ve learned ties into this description. You should be able to make new connections between the events you’ve studied.

Key Concept: Global Conflicts and their Consequences

At the beginning of the 20th century, a European-dominated global political order existed, which also included the United States, Russia, and Japan. Over the course of the 20th century, peoples and states around the world challenged this order in ways that sought to redistribute power within the existing order and to restructure empires, while those peoples and states in power attempted to maintain the status quo. Other peoples and states sought to overturn the political order itself. These challenges to, and attempts to maintain, the political order manifested themselves in an unprecedented level of conflict with high human casualties. In the context of these conflicts, many regimes in both older and newer states struggled with maintaining political stability and were challenged by internal and external factors, including ethnic and religious conflicts, secessionist movements, territorial partitions, economic dependency, and the legacies of colonialism.

Key Terms

I recommend being familiar with what these terms are, as well as their importance. Flash cards, Quizlet ( or other study tools are a great resource here. Almost all of these are discussed in your Reading Questions, too.

1. Qing dynasty
2. Opium War
3. Treaty of Nanjing
4. Taiping Rebellion
5. Boxer Rebellion
6. Tanzimat reforms
7. Young Turks
8. Young Ottomans
   (they’re different than the Young Turks!)
9. Self-Strengthening Movement
10. Sino-Japanese War
11. Meiji Restoration

1. Nationalism
2. Triple Alliance (Central Powers)
3. Triple Entente (Allies)
4. Schlieffen Plan
5. Fourteen Points
6. Pan-Slavism
7. League of Nations
8. Treaty of Versailles
9. Mandates (in the Middle East)
10. Great Depression
11. New Deal
12. Pearl Harbor
13. Fascism
14. United Nations

1. NATO
2. Communism
3. Chinese Communist Party (CCP)
4. Bolshevik Revolution
5. Joseph Stalin
6. Marxism
7. Mao Zedong
8. Great Leap Forward
9. Cultural Revolution
10. Deng Xiaoping
11. Glasnost
12. The Cold War
13. The military-industrial complex

1. Anticolonialism
2. Indian National Congress
3. Apartheid
4. Mohandas Ghandi
5. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk
6. Global South
7. Ayatollah Khomeini
8. Iranian Revolution

Key Questions & Ideas

These questions are designed to get you thinking about the “big picture” of the 20th century, since your weekly reading questions cover the specifics of each chapter. If you can explain the answers to these questions, it will help you understand the major connections between the events of these chapters.

1. (Ch. 19) What internal reasons and external reasons led to the collapse of the Ottoman and Qing empires, and how did Japan change to avoid that collapse?
2. Compare the three empires. What problems did each empire have within their own territories? What problems did they have with the outside world? What is each empire’s relationship to the Western powers, and how does that play a role in their collapse?
3. (Ch. 20) What were the causes and effects of World War 1 and World War 2? How did World War 1 lead to the Great Depression and World War 2?
4. Instead of thinking about the World Wars separately, think about how they are connected. How did one conflict lead to another, and what effects did they have on the world?
5. (Ch. 20 & 21) How did the global balance of political and economic power shift after World War 2, and how did this evolve into the Cold War?
6. (Ch. 21) How did communist movements transform Russia and China? What was similar and different about the changes to these countries?
7. (Ch. 22) How did the effects of World War 1 & World War 2 fuel anticolonialist movements and the weakening of European imperialism? What challenges did the newly independent states of the Global South face?
8. (All chapters) How do nationalism and self-determination impact events of the 20th century?
9. As you review, notice how nationalism affects almost every country in one way or another. (It shows up in all four chapters, so it must be important!) How does it serve as a positive force in some ways (by uniting people) and how does it serve as a negative force (by pitting people against each other?)