One of my students sat Grade 7 piano last week. The result has just come in, and both my student and I are surprised. The marks for the pieces are much lower than what we expected. Instead of the expected low to mid merit, it was a borderline pass--for all three pieces.

I have never encountered such a situation before. This is also the first time that a piano student of mine gets a violinist as examiner. I have yet to see the examiner's comments, and I am curious to know if having a non-pianist examiner had any bearing on the result. I suppose the examiner did not like my student's interpretation at all.

This happened to me, or rather my daughter at Grade 7 violin, and the examiner was a trombonist !
I was her accompanist, and I admit I'm not a string player, but for her peformance I certainly expected decent 'merit' marks. He wittered on in his report about lapses in accuracy of intonation, but Im capable enough of knowing that she was pretty good in that aspect of her playing. He did not have copies of her ( the book )pieces with him, and asked for a quick glance at each piece before she played it (just the violin part), probably about 10 seconds on each !
Its some years ago now however.

Sometimes this is just the way it goes. The AB have always used non-specialist examiners but there are pros and cons whether specialists or not. I'd hang on until you see the comments - if you feel particularly strongly you can always appeal, but a pass is a pass and that is no mean feat at this standard.

Try not to be too disappionted - YOU know how good your pupil is and an exam is after all just one person's assessment of one performance on one particular day.

Luv Bag x

It doesn't take too many marks to be lost in each section for an overall result to seem significantly less than expected. It's disappointing for teacher and pupil, but at least it's still a pass! On another day with a different examiner it might have been different, but there's always a best possible scenario and a worst in every exam, given that it's fairly subjective. It's good that your pupil was well enough prepared for the worst possible scenario to still be within the pass bracket. I try to dodge the question when pupils ask me what they're likely to get, other than try to assure them that they're 'safe', but if really pushed I'll give them two scenarios, and try to explain that as well as it being down to the pupil on the day, some examiners will be fussier about certain things than others, and some will give more credit for some things than others too. We hope for the best every time, but as long as it's a pass, I'd be relieved and move on from it.

I agree. I had a very surprising set of results in the summer - everyone passed, but with much lower marks than I'd expected. As teachers, we have a good idea what sort of marks our students will get, even allowing for nerves on the day and a "strange" piano. Of course, we congratulate our students on passing, but it's only natural for them (and us!) to feel disappointed when the merits we expected are only passes. But that's the nature of exams and sometimes the marks have been higher than I'd expected, which is lovely.
I remember being told about an exam session in Norway, where I used to live, when the examiner failed a lot of students. I think it was the first ever AB exam session there and the British teacher who was trying to get the system started there was really shocked.

A similar thing happened to me in Spring - one girl doing her first exam, grade 2 and one doing her grade 3, having done them all since the prep test. They both passed, but oddly low given their general everyday performance. Though oddly enough the grade 3 - when talking over the exam - made a bit of a face about the examiner, she just hadn't liked him for some reason, which was a different reaction from previous years. So she was quite philosophical when her marks came through...



[Oh, and now I'm worrying about my Grade 7 who is off at uni and taking her exam tomorrow....not much I can do about it now...]

I am wondering if there has been a slight tightening up of what examiners are asked to give in the way of marks. I'm never very far out in guessing what my pupils will get but guessing the wrong way up to three marks can mean a difference between fail /pass, pass/merit and merit/disticntion.

I have never had any reason to complain or to doubt the examiner's assessment. However in the past some of my pupils have had higher marks than I expected. In fact some have got distinction when I would have estimated a good merit. However in the last two years I have noticed that only those who really do have that "little extra" have got distinctions. There have been a rather larger number of merits which would seem to conpensate and the passes have remained about the same as before. I can't, on the basis of just my experience, offer any statistical evidence. It could just be coincidence - or my estimates may have been less accurate.

I'm the same in that I can usually judge fairly accurately what they'll get, but when I'm wrong it tends to be the whole bunch who are slightly lower or higher than expected.

My grade 7 violin result was low also (though I played shockingly I did play one piece that i thought when really well and the mark was very low), BUT I was told that violin exams had been made "stricter" as apparently last year lots of high marks where given for not deserving performances.
Only what I've heard so i don't know if this makes a difference.
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