<<Considering ~only~ time period, at a tournament such as Penn Bowl or NAQT (i.e., not ACF, not CBI), what percentage of history (including all countries) should cover the 20th century? And, considering ~only~ time period, what percentage of literature Qs should cover the 20th century?>> I try to break things according to the demands of the subject. For example, if writing to my own distribution, I'll have two american history questions. I break at 1877, the end of Reconstruction, which is where many two-part Am. history sequences in high school and college break and also where the major themes shift. In European history, I break at World War I, but only if classical history is counted separately; if not, I'd probably go with the ACF distribution and break at the Thirty Years War. For world history, it's hard to quantify, since there's not a lot of interaction between, say, the history of Nigeria and the history of Korea until very recently. It's probably more important to hit Asia in one question and either Africa or Latin America in the other when writing 2 world history questions for the same packet then it is to split chronological hairs. In short, the answer is, instead of asking how much should cover pre-1900 as opposed to post-, I ask where the line should be placed so that there are equal amounts on either side. I'm not as knowledgeable about literature, so I usually just go with what's been done before in subdividing that. --M.W.
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