What the exam asks
- Multiple Choice (Section I, Part A): Stimulus sets (such as paired speeches or economic charts from the 1930s) ask you to identify which underlying cause best explains a historical development or how a second source qualifies the claim of the first.
- DBQ and LEQ (Section II): Prompts frequently ask you to “Evaluate the extent to which...” a specific factor caused global conflict, or to “Explain the relative significance...” of various causes. Earning the final rubric point (Complex Understanding) requires you to go beyond a simple three-part list, for example by explaining multiple causes or effects, or by corroborating, qualifying, or modifying your thesis.
Core ideas
Weighing the causes of global conflict (1900–present)
Rapid advances in science and technology altered how wars were fought, while deep challenges to the existing political and social order drove states into total war. To evaluate relative significance, distinguish between long-term structural causes, intermediate accelerators, and short-term triggers.
| Causal Category | Specific Developments (1900–present) | Role in Global Conflict |
|---|---|---|
| Political & Social Challenges | Decline of land empires (Ottoman, Russian, Qing); anti-colonial nationalism; rise of communism and fascism. | Fundamental structural drivers: Created power vacuums, revolutionary upheaval, and aggressive ideological rivalries. |
| Imperial & Economic Competition | Scramble for colonies; Great Depression; protectionist trade policies; resource scarcity (e.g., Japan in Manchuria). | Accelerators: Turned economic desperation into territorial expansion and broke down international diplomacy. |
| Alliances & Peace Failures | Triple Entente vs. Triple Alliance; punitive Treaty of Versailles; weakness of the League of Nations; appeasement. | Catalysts of escalation: Turned localized disputes (the 1914 Balkan crisis, the 1939 invasion of Poland) into global wars. |
| Science & Technology | Industrialized militarism (dreadnoughts, poison gas, tanks, aircraft, atomic weapons); mass communication. | Escalators of scale: Did not always start wars, but created security dilemmas (arms races) and made conflict total and global. |
Building a complex argument
Under the AP history rubrics, you earn the Complexity Point (1 point on both the DBQ and LEQ) by demonstrating a nuanced understanding in more than a phrase or reference integrated into your essay. You can achieve this through either sophisticated historical reasoning or advanced evidence use:
- Multiple causes or effects: Explain multiple causes or multiple effects, or both causes and effects, of a development, or carefully rank causes (primary vs. secondary) with explicit reasoning for why one outweighed another.
- Corroborate: Reinforce your main claim by pulling in diverse perspectives or different themes (e.g., showing how economic data from Germany and political memoirs from Japan both support the same conclusion).
- Qualify or Modify: Set limits on your argument or introduce a counter-perspective (e.g., arguing that while nationalist rivalries primarily caused WWI, those rivalries only became catastrophic because industrial technology locked armies into total war).
- Advanced DBQ moves: Effectively use the content of all 7 documents to support your argument, or successfully explain the sourcing (POV, purpose, historical situation, or audience) for at least 4 documents.