World History
What the exam expects
World history items span from early civilizations through the modern era, emphasizing cause and effect, continuity and change, and cross-cultural interaction. You should be able to place major developments in time and connect them to consequences: the Neolithic Revolution, classical empires, the spread of religions, the Columbian Exchange, the Industrial Revolution, imperialism, and the World Wars.
Core concepts to master
- Neolithic Revolution: the shift from hunting-gathering to agriculture produced settled communities, surplus, specialization, and social stratification.
- Classical empires: Greece and Rome contributed democratic and legal traditions; Han China and the Maurya/Gupta empires shaped Asian political and religious life. Trade networks like the Silk Road spread goods, ideas, and disease.
- Religions and their diffusion: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism each spread through distinct mechanisms-trade, conquest, and missionary activity.
- Columbian Exchange: the transfer of crops, animals, people, and diseases between hemispheres after 1492; Old World diseases devastated Indigenous populations.
- Revolutions and industrialization: the Industrial Revolution began in Britain around 1750, driven by coal, capital, and colonial markets; it reshaped labor, urbanization, and class structure.
Traps to watch for
Questions often confuse cause with effect (did industrialization cause urbanization, or vice versa?). Another trap: attributing a development to the wrong region or century-know that the printing press (c. 1450) preceded the Reformation, and that the Columbian Exchange followed 1492.
Rule of thumb
For any era, ask: what changed, what stayed the same, and who benefited? This frames most document-based reasoning.
Worked example: The Columbian Exchange increased European food supply (potatoes, maize) and enriched diets, while simultaneously introducing smallpox to the Americas-demonstrating that exchange produces uneven consequences.