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Music History: 20th Century and Contemporary — HS Music practice questions

8 multiple-choice questions and 3 flashcards on Music History: 20th Century and Contemporary, about 5% of the HS Music bank. Every one carries a written rationale.

Written and maintained by the CoStudy team · last updated 2026-09-29 · how we write and review questions

What this chapter covers

Music History: 20th Century and Contemporary is one of 12 chapters in CoStudy's HS Music (General) bank, and it holds 8 of the bank's 150 multiple-choice questions — roughly 5% of the total. That proportion is not arbitrary: chapters follow the certifying body's published exam outline, and the number of questions in each is set by that domain's published weight, so the share of your practice time this chapter takes matches the share of the real exam it accounts for.

Studying by chapter is worth doing once you have a diagnostic score. A single overall percentage tells you whether you are close; it does not tell you which domain is dragging. Working a weak chapter in isolation, and re-testing it in isolation, is the fastest way to move a score that has stalled — and it is why the mock exams in CoStudy report by domain rather than as one number.

Free Music History: 20th Century and Contemporary practice questions

1 questions drawn from this chapter, with the full rationale shown — the controlling principle behind the right answer, and why each wrong option tempts and fails.

Time signature 3/4 means:

  1. 3 notes total
  2. 4 beats per 3
  3. 3 beats per measure, quarter note gets the beat (waltz time)
  4. Just slow
  5. Just fast

Answer: C — 3 beats per measure, quarter note gets the beat (waltz time)

Time signature: top = beats per measure; bottom = note value getting beat. 3/4: 3 quarter notes per measure. 4/4: common time (most common). 6/8: compound duple (often 2 beats of dotted quarter). 2/2: cut time. Affects feel and meter.

Music History: 20th Century and Contemporary flashcards

2 cards from the 3 in this chapter.

World music traditions?

Indian (ragas), Chinese (pentatonic), African (polyrhythms), Latin (clave), Indonesian (gamelan).

Cultural function of music?

Celebration, mourning, religion, identity, work, protest, education. Universal across cultures.

Practise the full chapter

These are a sample. The full Music History: 20th Century and Contemporary chapter runs 11 items with per-chapter progress tracking, on the web and in the iOS app.

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Other HS Music chapters

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