I am finding very often, with myself in the past, and now with pupils, that it is very often the case that the best mark received from an examiner is awarded for the piece on which the least time has been spent! It often happens when it's been difficult to choose a third piece from the list, and something has been thrown together at the last minute. So I was wondering how much other teachers have had the same experience, and, if so, why you think this might be? Is it because this piece will sound fresher? Is the candidate concentrating harder on it on the day, as it's maybe not so automatic yet? Or is it a fluke?!

I've observed this too in my own exams, right up to DipABRSM - the Bach I threw into the programme at 'the last minute' was better received than the rest of the pieces. Maybe because I was more enthusiastic about it than the the others, I don't know. It's happened to my pupil quite a few times as well.

This has always happened to me. I will usually start the A piece alot sooner than the rest and work on that and then start the B and C piece alot later and those are the two that always get the highest mark

Sorry! I had the reverse happening this time. In September, I took over a pupil who was working towards Grade 1. She didn't like one of the pieces, and I felt it was not a good choice, so we swapped it. Although she did very well in the exam, she got the lowest mark for the new piece. It did, however, involve her learning to play in D major (a key not usually set for Grade 1) and how to play both C# and G# which she had not previously encountered.

In my last exam the piece I practiced the most got the lowest mark.

Sometimes I think you can overpractice a piece and the technical aspect starts to take over from the musical aspect until you are playing the piece with not much musicality. You also loose the feeling of the piece of music. I know this has happened to me before

It happened to me a couple of times - especially once when a pupil transferred from another teacher and was struggling with her B piece. I felt it wasn't the best choice for her and swapped it to a different one; taught it by a mixture of rote and reading (she had reading problems - dyslexia) and she got the best mark for that piece.

I tend to teach A, B and then the one from list C much later. The C list one is the one they end up most confident with, but the highest mark piece is nearly always the B list.

The grade 2 students received whopping marks every time for The Moth. Everyone got a 28 or 29 for that these last two years. I am so going to miss that piece!