Question 1
Historian 2 differs from Historian 1 mainly by emphasizing
The AP World History: Modern exam in 2027: format, date and length
Three hours and fifteen minutes in two sections: 55 multiple-choice questions and 3 short-answer questions, then the document-based question and the long essay. From May 2027 every short answer is required, and so is the one long essay prompt.
| Multiple choice | 55 questions, 55 minutes, 40% of the score |
|---|---|
| Short answer | 3 questions, 40 minutes, 20% |
| DBQ and long essay | 2 essays, 1 hour 40 minutes, 40% |
| Date | Thursday, May 6, 2027, Session 1 |
The four parts
- Section I, Part A: 55 multiple-choice questions in 55 minutes, 40% of the score. They usually come in sets of three or four questions on one source: a primary or secondary text, an image, a graph or a map.
- Section I, Part B: 3 short-answer questions in 40 minutes, 20%. All three are required. Question 1 has a secondary text source, question 2 a primary text source, and question 3 a primary or secondary non-text source. They cover 1200 to 2001, each from a different period.
- Section II: the document-based question, about 60 minutes including a 15-minute reading period, 25%, with seven documents on a topic from 1200 to 2001.
- Section II: the long essay question, about 40 minutes, 15%. One required, broad prompt that lets you draw evidence from about half of the course's time periods.
- It is fully digital: you answer every part in the Bluebook app.
What changed for May 2027
Every short-answer question now includes source material and all three are required, so there is no choice between questions. The long essay is a single required prompt with a brief introductory statement, and you may focus on one or more developments it names. The course content, the multiple choice and the scoring rubrics did not change.
The nine units
The multiple choice is weighted by unit. Units 3 to 6, c. 1450 to c. 1900, carry 12–15% each, between 48% and 60% of it together.
- Units 1 and 2, c. 1200 to c. 1450: The Global Tapestry and Networks of Exchange (8–10% each)
- Units 3 and 4, c. 1450 to c. 1750: Land-Based Empires and Transoceanic Interconnections (12–15% each)
- Units 5 and 6, c. 1750 to c. 1900: Revolutions and Consequences of Industrialization (12–15% each)
- Units 7 to 9, c. 1900 to the present: Global Conflict, Cold War and Decolonization, and Globalization (8–10% each)
Pacing
Part A gives you one minute a question, reading time included, so read the source first and the questions second. Part B gives about 13 minutes per short answer.
Try 2 questions
Historian 1 and Historian 2
Historian 1: Song China in the eleventh and twelfth centuries looks strikingly modern. Paper money circulated, cities such as Kaifeng and Hangzhou held hundreds of thousands of people, ironworks turned out tools and weapons in great quantities, and merchants shipped porcelain and silk across the seas. In the scale of its markets and workshops, Song China had no equal in the world of its time.
Historian 2: Commerce grew under the Song, but the empire's core remained what it had long been: a society of free peasant farmers ruled by an emperor and a bureaucracy of scholar-officials trained in the Confucian classics. Officials ranked merchants below farmers and regulated trade, and successful merchant families often put their profits into land and into educating their sons for the civil service examinations.
Marco Polo, a Venetian merchant, on the relay stations of Khubilai Khan's empire, c. 1298
At some of these stations, moreover, there shall be posted some four hundred horses standing ready for the use of the messengers; at others there shall be two hundred, according to the requirements, and to what the Emperor has established in each case. . . .
For it is a fact that on all these posts taken together there are more than 300,000 horses kept up, specially for the use of the messengers. And the great buildings that I have mentioned are more than 10,000 in number, all richly furnished, as I told you. . . .
And in this way the Emperor, who has an immense number of these runners, receives despatches with news from places ten days’ journey off in one day and night; or, if need be, news from a hundred days off in ten days and nights; and that is no small matter!
Question 2
Polo presents the relay system mainly as evidence of
Next step
Questions people ask
How long is the AP World History: Modern exam?
3 hours 15 minutes: 55 minutes of multiple choice, 40 minutes of short answers, and 1 hour 40 minutes for the document-based question and the long essay.
When is the AP World History exam in 2027?
Thursday, May 6, 2027, in Session 1, the morning session. Your AP coordinator confirms the start time and place.
How many questions are on the AP World History exam?
60: 55 multiple-choice questions, 3 short-answer questions, 1 document-based question and 1 long essay question.
Is there a choice of long essay in 2027?
No. From May 2027 there is one required long essay prompt. It is broad, drawing on about half of the course's time periods, and you may focus on one or more of the developments it names.