The AP Art History course and exam are structured around ten content areas:

1. Global Prehistory
2. Ancient Mediterranean
3. Early Europe and Colonial Americas
4. Later Europe and Americas
5. Indigenous Americas
6. Africa
7. West and Central Asia
8. South, East, and Southeast Asia
9. The Pacific
10. Global Contemporary

 

The AP Art History course:

• Engages you at the same level as an introductory college art history survey course. You'll develop skills in visual, contextual, and comparative analysis.
• Offers you freedom and flexibility to learn about art history according to your needs and interests.
• Limits the required course content to 250 works of art — foundational exemplars of global artistic traditions within 10 content areas — to promote in-depth learning. You are also encouraged to study additional works that are important and relevant to you.
• Includes global art content, with emphasis on diverse artistic traditions.
• Features learning objectives that represent the disciplinary skills valued by art historians and higher education faculty. The exam is completely aligned with the course learning objectives and content, so your pathway to course and exam success is clear.

Download the AP Art History Course and Exam Description, Effective Fall 2015, which includes:

• an image set of the required 250 works of art — along with identifying information and context for each
• course learning objectives
• sample exam questions

Important Update

Within the identifying information for the Great Mosque of Córdoba in the previous version of the AP Art History Course and Exam Description (pages 63, 244), the word "begun" was inadvertently excluded from the date of creation. The identifying information should read as follows:

56. Great Mosque. Córdoba, Spain. Umayyad. Begun c. 785–786 C.E. Stone masonry.

This has been corrected in the course and exam description online. If you supply the previously published date of creation ("c. 785–786 C.E.") on the 2016 exam, you will not be penalized for an incorrect response in the multiple-choice section and will earn credit for the identifier in the free-response section.