What is the concept outline?

Beginning with the 2016 exam, the College Board has provided an outline of information that may appear on the exam. According to their statements, nothing outside the outline will appear on the exam. Moreover, the examples, which have bullet points throughout the following pages, will not be specifically tested, but may be used to illustrate points in short-answer questions (SAQs), long essay questions (LEQs), and document-based questions (DBQs).

Hopefully this provides you with a nice resource to guide your review efforts for the AP exam. Please feel free to contact me with any suggestions or comments. There is a contact form on my home page.

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Period 1: 1450-1648

1. The rediscovery of works from ancient Greece and Rome and observation of the natural world changed many Europeans' view of their world.
2. Religious pluralism challenged the concept of a unified Europe.
3. Europeans explored and settled overseas territories, encountering and interacting with indigenous populations.
4. European society and the experiences of everyday life were increasingly shaped by commercial and agricultural capitalism, notwithstanding the continued existence of medieval social and economic structures.
5. The struggle for sovereignty within and among states resulted in varying degrees of political centralization.

Period 2: 1648-1815

1. Different models of political sovereignty affected the relationship among states and between states and individuals.
2. The expansion of European commerce accelerated the growth of a worldwide economic network.
3. The spread of Scientific Revolution concepts and practices and the Enlightenment's application of these concepts and practices to political, social, and ethical issues led to an increased but not unchallenged emphasis on reason in European culture.
4. The experiences of everyday life were shaped by demographic, environmental, medical, and technological changes.

Period 3: 1815-1914

1. The Industrial Revolution spread from Great Britain to the continent, where the state played a greater role in promoting industry.
2. The experiences of everyday life were shaped by industrialization, depending on the level of industrial development in a particular location.
3. Political revolutions and the complications resulting from industrialization triggered a range of ideological, governmental, and collective responses.
4. European states struggled to maintain international stability in an age of nationalism and revolutions. 
5. A variety of motives and methods led to the intensification of European global control and increased tensions among the Great Powers.
6. European ideas and culture expressed a tension between objectivity and scientific realism on one hand, and subjectivity and individual expression on the other.

Period 4: 1914-Present

1. Total war and political instability in the first half of the 20th century gave way to a polarized state order during the Cold War and eventually to efforts at transnational union.
2. The stresses of economic collapse and total war engendered internal conflicts within European states and created conflicting conceptions of the relationship between the individual and the state, as demonstrated in the ideological battle between and among democracy, communism, and fascism.
3. During the 20th century, diverse intellectual and cultural movements questioned the existence of objective knowledge, the ability of reason to arrive at truth, and the role of religion in determining moral standards.
4. Demographic changes, economic growth, total war, disruptions of traditional social patterns, and competing definitions of freedom and justice altered the experiences of everyday life.