The history of empires that rose and fell, how technology affected borders, and historical trade routes, among others, are the things AP World History promises to teach, however, the truth about the class is a lot more complicated.
AP World History is currently a very popular class at TCS with over 40 grade eleven and senior students taking the class in the 2023 – 2024 school year, many of them have positive things to say about the class, some positive praising it for its great curriculum and ability to prepare students for the AP exam while others question the teaching style and surface level understanding.
The class covers the entirety of the period spanning from the years 1200 CE to 2000 CE going in chronological order, covering events from the late Middle Ages to the end of the Cold War and the turn of the century, all the while covering topics such as territorial expansion, changes in trade routes, and economic changes across the epochs, leading to a very interesting class with a lot of potential for students learning about their history and understanding how the modern world got to where it is. “It’s great to learn about such a large span of time in a single class,“ 11th grader Santiago Ramos said.
On the flip side, having to go through so many topics across a period of 800 years while being limited to just a few months to cover them leaves the class unable to go in-depth on any one topic, instead being forced to only give students a surface-level understanding of all the changes during these 800 years, most of which were crucial to the modern world as we know it. This has left many students disappointed that they won’t get to cover their favorite historical periods in detail.
The teaching method Mr. Murphy utilizes is very organized and respectful of students’ time and capabilities, who, should they wish to, and able to explore the topic on their own and go into some more depth by utilizing the materials and additional sources provided by the teacher. Additionally, a good part of the learning is done by students teaching their peers, this encourages students to go above and beyond in their learning, so their peers also benefit from the effort they put into research and presentation.
Regardless, the teaching style is not without its complaints … “I would criticize that it’s somewhat monotonous, and sometimes it can become a little boring,” grade eleven Matias Arismendi said.
As this is an AP class, many students take the AP exam at the end of the year, and thus, one of the main purposes of the class is to adequately prepare students for said test. “I believe the preparation is good, although I’m worried we haven’t done any multiple choice, I’m confident we will do some of those in quarter 4. But when it comes in regards to DBQs, SAQs, etc, we’re prepared very well,” Arismendi said.
Many students believe the class is effectively preparing them for the AP exam, as it teaches both the content that will be tested on the exam: the history of the world during the covered time period as well and the formats that will be required to do well on the test, such as how to structure Short and Long answer questions, how to answer document based questions, among others.
Regardless, this style has its own problems. “I understand that to prepare for the AP exam we need to learn the formats of SAQs and LEQs, but sometimes I feel frustrated that we spend so much time on that when we could be using that time to learn history,” Ramos said.
