Download Advanced Placement World History Summer Homework

Advanced Placement World History Summer Homework
Instructor's Name: Mrs. Tracy Kurzendoerfer, Mrs. Katie Toy
E-mail address: [email protected] or [email protected]
COURSE INFORMATION:
The decision you have made to tackle one of the most challenging and rewarding classes on campus will prove to be one of the most
meaningful in your academic career. This college-level class entails the study of 3,500 years history in 28 weeks, and it will demand more
attention and time than any other class you have ever previously encountered. Rather than dwell on specific detail, the history we
investigate together will reveal patterns of interaction, integration, and how our global community came to exist in its present form.
Developing critical thought and analysis skills are the core objectives of this course. At its successful completion, you will learn new
appreciation for your world, a global perspective, and academic tools that will help you succeed at every level of your educational career.
Please focus on deeply learning this material, as you will need it at the end of the year for your AP exam. To provide a foundation for our
learning and to lighten our workload in the fall, we have a summer homework assignment detailed later in this handout.
This course is a history course intended to prepare students to pass the Advanced Placement exam in World History. Dealing primarily
with the time period 600 C.E. to present, the course focuses on the exchanges among major societies through history; the relationship of
change and continuity across the world; the impact of technology and demography on people and environment; systems of social and
gender structure; cultural and intellectual developments among and within societies; changes in functions and structures of states; and in
attitudes toward states and political identities including the emergence of the nation state.
SUMMER READING ASSIGNMENTS
You must read selected chapters from Guns Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond (ISBN: 0813498023) You can find a copy in
any library, local book store, or online. If you have trouble finding a copy of this book, please contact one of us and we will find a
copy for you. In this book, you are to read and answer questions (attached).
You must read Chapter 2 in the Strayer textbook (attached) and complete the Comparison Chart (attached)
All of these materials are due the second day of school. If you do not have these materials you must drop the course!
Please understand that this is not busy work; the purpose is to create a “jumping off” point for our discussions and historical
inquiry. Your understanding of this material is critical to your success in APWH.
AP RELATED ISSUES

Colleges and universities do look carefully at transcripts. AP coursework and attempting to pass the test rank very high in admissions
consideration at impacted and competitive institutions and programs.
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AP course grades are weighted to reflect a greater level of achievement in terms of GPA and rigor in coursework.
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AP World History course content should not exceed 30% European history, but rather should reflect a global perspective of history.
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The AP exam for this course will be offered in May 2014 at 8 AM. The cost will be $92.00. More information about the exam will follow.
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Your child can expect to read at least a chapter a week in their textbooks.
Summer Homework
2013-2014
AP WORLD HISTORY
Questions: Guns, Germs, and Steel
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Contact your teacher if you have any questions at: [email protected] or
[email protected]
Due the second day of school. NO EXCUSES!
All of the following questions should be in answered on a separate sheet of paper in complete sentences. Failure to do
either, will result in a ZERO on the assignment. Please remember that answers should be only yours. Students caught
cheating will receive a ZERO on the assignment.
Prologue: Yali’s Question
• Why do you think that Diamond chooses to begin his book with a question?
• Why do you think the Yali question is relevant to us today?
• Diamond proposes his answer to Yali’s question: Do you find this persuasive so far? If so, why? If not, what kind of
evidence would he have to supply to persuade you?
• Diamond challenges some common explanations for differences among human societies. Are you familiar with these
explanations? Do you know people who share them?.
Chapter One: Up to the Starting Line
• Diamond says: “An observer transported back in time to 11.000 B.C. could not have predicted on which continent
human societies would develop most quickly, but could have made a strong case for any of the continents.” Why
does Diamond begin his story at this point in human history; why not sooner or later?
Chapter Three: Collision at Cajamarca
• Pizarro defeated the Incan emperor Atahuallpa, just like the Maori defeated the Moriori in the previous chapter. Why
does Diamond use historical anecdotes to support his argument at this point in the book, rather than some other
kind of evidence, like statistics?
• Can you think of a time when a less materially advanced society defeated a more materially advanced society? If
you can, doesn’t that cast doubt on Diamond’s claim?
Chapter Four: Farmer Power
• Diamond claims that there is a relationship between farming and societal development. Where does he get the
evidence to support this claim?
• Did humans living at the time create documents (like diaries and newspapers) that survive to this day? In what part
of the book does Diamond tell you what his sources of information are?
Chapter Five: History’s Haves and Have-Nots
• Some areas of the world developed independent food production more quickly than others. Why should Diamond
be concerned with this subject? What relationship does this have to his argument?
Chapter Six: To Farm or not to Farm
• Settled agriculture replaced hunting and gathering slowly; the transition was neither immediate, nor obvious.
Doesn’t that seem counterintuitive? Why would someone want to continue hunting and gathering when given the
choice of settled agriculture?
Summer Homework
2013-2014
Chapter Ten: Spacious Skies and Titled Axes
• According to Diamond, agricultural innovations spread more quickly from East to West, along the orientation of
Eurasia’s axis, than from North to South. Why?
• What does his have to do with the fates of human societies?
Chapter Eleven: The Lethal Gift of Livestock
• Farmers transmit more powerful germs than hunter-gatherers: Diamond, in this chapter, draws on conclusions that
he made in the previous sections. What are they? Do you find him persuasive?
Chapter Twelve: Blueprints and Borrowed Letters
• According to Diamond, food production precedes the development of writing. Think back to points that Diamond
made earlier in the book: How can he say with any certainty that food must precede writing?
• Why might not people develop writing earlier?
Part Four: Around the World in Five Chapters
Read at least one chapter from part four. Explain how it supports Diamond’s argument.
Summer Homework
2013-2014