Use this as a checklist. Each unit page has the full topic list, key ideas, common mistakes and its practice test.
Unit 1 surveys how states and belief systems developed around the world from about 1200 to 1450: Song China, the Islamic world, Hindu and Buddhist states in South and Southeast Asia, the Mexica and Inca, African kingdoms and feudal Europe. The skill that matters most is comparing how different states gained and kept power.
Focus on: song china used tradition to rule; dar al-islam fragmented but kept growing; belief systems shaped south and southeast asia; states in the americas and africa were large and organised.
Unit 2 follows goods, people, ideas and diseases along the great trade networks from about 1200 to 1450: the Silk Roads, the Mongol Empire, the Indian Ocean and the trans-Saharan routes. You need to explain what made trade grow and what its cultural and environmental effects were.
Focus on: new tools and institutions made trade grow; the mongols connected eurasia; the indian ocean ran on the monsoon; camels made the sahara crossable.
Unit 3 covers the large land-based empires of about 1450 to 1750: the Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal (the gunpowder empires), the Manchu Qing and the Russian Empire. You need to explain how they expanded with gunpowder, how rulers kept power, and how belief systems shaped and divided them.
Focus on: gunpowder helped empires expand; rulers used many tools to keep power; belief systems united and divided; compare how empires ruled diverse peoples.
Unit 4 explains how European exploration from about 1450 to 1750 connected the Eastern and Western Hemispheres. You will trace the technologies and motives behind exploration, the Columbian Exchange, how maritime empires were built and run with coerced labour, and how people resisted.
Focus on: technology and motives drove exploration; the columbian exchange changed both hemispheres; maritime empires ran on coerced labour; power was challenged and hierarchies changed.
Unit 5 covers two great revolutions of about 1750 to 1900. Enlightenment ideas inspired political revolutions in the Americas and Europe and new nationalist movements, while the Industrial Revolution transformed how goods were made, how economies worked and how people lived.
Focus on: enlightenment ideas inspired revolutions; industrialisation began in britain; industrialisation spread and changed economies; workers and reformers responded.
Unit 6 explains how industrialisation pushed states to expand their empires from about 1750 to 1900, how colonised peoples resisted, how the global economy changed, and why millions of people migrated. Causation is the key skill: link industrial needs to imperial expansion and its effects.
Focus on: industrial needs and ideas drove imperialism; empires expanded, especially in africa and asia; colonised peoples resisted; economic imperialism and migration.
Unit 7 covers the first half of the twentieth century: the collapse of old empires, World War I, the Great Depression, the rise of fascism and communism, World War II and mass atrocities. You need to explain the causes of the wars and how total war was fought.
Focus on: old empires fell; world war i was a total war; the interwar years brought crisis; world war ii and mass atrocities.
Unit 8 covers the decades after 1945, when the United States and the Soviet Union competed for global influence and dozens of colonies in Asia and Africa won independence. You need to explain the causes and effects of the Cold War, how independence was won, and the challenges new states faced.
Focus on: two superpowers competed; communism spread and changed; colonies won independence in different ways; new states and the end of the cold war.
Unit 9 covers how the world became more connected after 1900: new technologies in communication, transport and medicine, debates about the environment, the spread of free-market economics, movements for rights and reform, a global popular culture, and new international organisations.
Focus on: technology connected and changed lives; growth strained the environment; economies became more global; rights, culture and institutions spread.