AP World History

Mr. Storck’s Study Guide & Test Survival Kit

20th Century Test (Strayer’s Ways of the World, Chapter 19, 20, 21, 22)

Test Dates: Tuesday, October 11 (A) - Wednesday, October 12 (B)

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.
a. 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).
2. 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.
a. 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.
3. 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:
a. Crash Course World History: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?
list=PLBDA2E52FB1EF80C9
b. 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
(www.quizlet.com) or other study tools are a great resource here. Almost all of these are discussed in
your Reading Questions, too.

Chapter 19 Chapter 20

1. Qing dynasty 1. Nationalism

2. Opium War 2. Triple Alliance (Central Powers)
3. Treaty of Nanjing 3. Triple Entente (Allies)
4. Taiping Rebellion 4. Schlieffen Plan
5. Boxer Rebellion 5. Fourteen Points
6. Tanzimat reforms 6. Pan-Slavism
7. Young Turks 7. League of Nations
8. Young Ottomans 8. Treaty of Versailles
(they’re different than the Young Turks!) 9. Mandates (in the Middle East)
9. Self-Strengthening Movement 10. Great Depression
10. Sino-Japanese War 11. New Deal
11. Meiji Restoration 12. Pearl Harbor
13. Fascism
14. United Nations

Chapter 21 Chapter 22

1. NATO 1. Anticolonialism
2. Communism 2. Indian National Congress
3. Chinese Communist Party (CCP) 3. Apartheid
4. Bolshevik Revolution 4. Mohandas Ghandi
5. Joseph Stalin 5. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk
6. Marxism 6. Global South
7. Mao Zedong 7. Ayatollah Khomeini
8. Great Leap Forward 8. Iranian Revolution
9. Cultural Revolution
10. Deng Xiaoping
11. Glasnost
12. The Cold War
 13. The military-industrial complex

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?
a. 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?
2. (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?
a. 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?
3. (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?
4. (Ch. 21) How did communist movements transform Russia and China? What was similar and
different about the changes to these countries?
5. (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?
6. (All chapters) How do nationalism and self-determination impact events of the 20th century?
a. 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?)