AP European History — Unit 7: 20th-Century Global Conflicts (c.1914–present)
Practice questions, answers, and key terms for Unit 7, aligned to the College Board CED.
Exam weighting: Unit 7 is 20% of the AP European History exam.
What AP European History Unit 7 covers
The College Board Course and Exam Description breaks Unit 7 into 9 topics:
- 7.1 Contextualizing 20th-Century Global Conflicts
- 7.2 World War I
- 7.3 The Russian Revolution
- 7.4 Versailles Settlement and Its Consequences
- 7.5 Interwar Economy
- 7.6 Fascism and Totalitarianism
- 7.7 Europe During World War II
- 7.8 The Holocaust
- 7.9 Causation in 20th-Century Global Conflicts
AP European History Unit 7 practice questions
By 1914 Europe had enjoyed nearly a century without a continent-wide war — then it produced the deadliest conflict in history. What pre-existing condition turned a single assassination into total war?
A rigid web of interlocking alliances pulled in every great power. They turned a local Balkan dispute into a continental war.
Militarism and nationalism both fueled 1914, but only one of them was about hardware. Which long-term cause refers specifically to arms buildup and glorifying military power?
Militarism — arms buildup and worship of military power. The Anglo-German naval race after HMS Dreadnought is the prime example.
A teenage Serbian nationalist fires two shots in Sarajevo in June 1914. Trace the first ripple: which empire reacts, and against whom?
Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia first. Its heir Franz Ferdinand was killed, so it issued an ultimatum, then war.
Germany's war plan assumed a quick knockout of France through Belgium before turning east. The plan stalls at the Marne in 1914. What kind of war does Europe get instead?
A stalemated trench war on the Western Front. The Schlieffen Plan's failure locked both sides into static, attritional fighting.
Machine guns, poison gas, and artillery meet a soldier charging across open ground between two trench lines. What does industrial-era technology do to 19th-century tactics?
It makes infantry charges suicidal against modern firepower. Defensive firepower far outpaced offensive mobility, for almost no ground gained.
A government needs millions of shells, total food rationing, and women in the factories — all at once. What does waging this war force every combatant state to become?
A total-war economy in which the state directs production. It marshals labor and resources toward the war effort.
Germany resumes sinking ships without warning in 1917, betting it can starve Britain before reinforcements arrive. The bet backfires. Who shows up?
The United States, entering in 1917 over submarines. Germany's unrestricted submarine warfare drew it into the war.
The Western Front froze into trenches; the Eastern Front kept moving across vast distances. What single difference produced two completely different wars?
Geography and scale — the East's open vastness. Its huge spaces prevented the continuous fortified trench lines that froze the West.
+ 47 more AP European History cards in the app.
Key terms in Unit 7
These 12 terms show up in the Unit 7 cards. Each one links to its definition in the AP European History key-term reference.
Drill all of Unit 7 with spaced repetition
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