Important Updates
To help more students prepare for—and succeed on—the AP Comparative Government and Politics Exam, we’ve clarified the course’s focus starting with the 2019-20 school year and are introducing new resources for your classroom. We’ve also moved exam registration to the fall, a best practice that improves students’ chances of earning college credit and placement.
Download the new course and exam description
New AP Resources
This August, we’re introducing AP Classroom, with a suite of new resources designed in collaboration with AP educators that will help give students personalized feedback throughout the year. These include in-depth unit guides, personal progress checks and a dashboard to measure student progress, and a question bank of real AP questions.
Course Overview
AP Comparative Government and Politics is an introductory college-level course in comparative government and politics.The course uses a comparative approach to examine the political structures; policies; and political, economic, and social challenges of six selected countries: China, Iran, Mexico, Nigeria, Russia, and the United Kingdom. Students cultivate their understanding of comparative government and politics through analysis of data and text-based sources as they explore topics like power and authority, legitimacy and stability, democratization, internal and external forces, and methods of political analysis.
Your new course and exam description (CED) for the 2019-20 school year more clearly outlines all required course content and skills and defines how they will be assessed on the exam.
Course Content
Based on the Understanding by Design® (Wiggins and McTighe) model, this course framework provides a description of the course requirements necessary for student success. The framework specifies what students should know and be able to do to, with a focus on big ideas that encompass core principles, theories, and processes of the discipline. The framework also encourages instruction that prepares students for advanced comparative political science coursework and to be active and informed about politics abroad.
The AP Comparative Government and Politics framework is organized into five commonly taught units of study that provide one possible sequence for the course. As always, you have the flexibility to organize the course content as you like.
Unit |
Exam Weighting (Multiple-Choice Section) |
| Unit 1: Political Systems, Regimes, and Governments | 18%–27% |
| Unit 2: Political Institutions | 22%–33% |
| Unit 3: Political Culture and Participation | 11%–18% |
| Unit 4: Party and Electoral Systems and Citizen Organizations | 13%–18% |
| Unit 5: Political and Economic Changes and Development | 16%–24% |
Disciplinary Practices
The updated AP Comparative Government and Politics framework included in the course and exam description outlines distinct skills, called disciplinary practices, that students should practice throughout the year—practices that will help them learn to think and act like comparative political scientists.
Skill |
Description |
| 1. Concept Application | Apply political concepts and processes in authentic contexts. |
| 2. Country Comparison | Compare political concepts and processes among the course countries (China, Iran, Mexico, Nigeria, Russia, and the United Kingdom). |
| 3. Data Analysis | Analyze and interpret quantitative data represented in tables, charts, graphs, maps, and infographics. |
| 4. Source Analysis | Read, analyze, and interpret text-based sources. |
| 5. Argumentation | Develop an argument in essay format. |
AP and Higher Education
Higher education professionals play a key role developing AP courses and exams, setting credit and placement policies, and scoring student work. The AP Higher Education site features information on recruitment and admission, advising and placement, and more.
This chart shows recommended scores for granting credit, and how much credit should be awarded, for each AP course. Your students can look up credit and placement policies for colleges and universities on the AP Credit Policy Search.
Meet the current Development Committee for AP Comparative Government and Politics.