My instructor has never before prepared students for the ABRSM, so could someone please clarify this for me?

I'm a little confused about what exactly we need to do with our hands--exactly how many times total do we need to play the scales for 1. and 2.?

A short story about scale-playing during the exam would do nicely, thank you.

1. in similar motion with hands together one octave apart, and with each hand separately, in all keys, major and minor (melodic or harmonic at candidate's choice) (three octaves)

2. in contrary motion with both hands beginning and ending on the key-note (unison), in the keys specified in one of the following groups chosen by the candidate (two octaves)

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Also, overall, there are 6 parts to the exam, right? Did I miss anything?
1-Major/minor Scales
2-Chromatic scales
3-Arpeggios
4-3 pieces
5-Sightreading
6-Aural

Piano grade 5

- 3 pieces, 1 from each list (A,B, and C)
- sight reading
- arural tests
- scales

1) scales in similar motion an octave apart means both your hands go in the same direction. for example in C major, right hand starts on middle C and your left hand starts on the C below it. you go up 3 octaves then down to where you started just the once!

2) both your hands start on the same note but go in different directions for 2 octaves then back to where you started.

scale playing in an exam- the examiner will ask you to play a scale and you play it! they won't ask every scale sbut you need to know them all.

do you have a list of all the scales needed for grade 5?

hope this helps

Nat

P.S- im doing grade 5 too!!

For grade 5 they ask you about 3 major, 3 minor, 1 chromatic scale, then a couple in contrary motion, and about 3 major, 3 minor arpeggios...
It might have changed because I did grade 5 18 months ago but that's what happened to me!

Go herePiano Grade 5 for information on the exams.