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Allow one week to teach Chapter 37.

Encourage students to read multiple-choice question stems carefully. If they jump too quickly into reading the choices, they can be easily confused with "distracters." These wrong answers may include some true points of information, but if read carefully, do not answer the specific question. Suggest that students begin to underline, bracket, or circle the important words in question prompts so that they focus more carefully on what they are being asked.

Threat to Western economic dominance
In the late 20th century, the nations of the Pacific Rim—Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong—became powerful forces in the world economy. Until Japan experienced economic difficulties in the 1990s, many of them from internal problems, it appeared that Japan's industrial might could not be stopped. The expansion of South Korea's economy is all the more impressive when compared to the dismal failure of North Korea's Communist-dominated economy. The authors lay the growth of these economies to two factors: special contacts with either Britain or the United States and the experience of World War II that fundamentally changed the thinking of these nations. Also, all of the nations except Japan shared a common Chinese heritage.

A major theme in the AP* World History course is that of gender and gender-related issues. To help students see the scope of women's history, have them do research and present oral reports on significant periods for women in world history. Students should begin their research with information presented in the text and then extend it with outside readings. As the students conduct their research, they should note not only women's rights (or lack of) and their social standing, but also their place in the family.

After the reports have been presented, students should, as a class, create a visual, possibly a graph, that symbolizes the rise and fall of women's position in the different cultures. This visual should spark a debate about which cultures allowed women more freedom and rights and why. Through such a discussion, students will be dealing with the factual information they have learned (and reviewed) in order to create a position and defend it. This is an excellent review of the year, because students have to justify their stands on women's issues by using both general information and information related to women from the cultures they have studied.

You might also find these additional readings useful to develop students' background knowledge or for DBQ activities: