I couldn't work out how to search this effectively on the ask the examiner thread, so wondered if anyone happened to already know.

Do ABRSM keep a tally of which examination pieces are the most popular for presentation in each session? And if so, do they have the results available anywhere? I am just interested because I often leaf through the book and think cripes I can't imagine anyone playing that, but surely they do, and maybe what I find easy others find really challenging. I also have visions of the poor examiner sitting through the 35th presentation of piece A:1 and thinking why oh why did we choose those ones for A:2 and A:3! Also interesting to see how many people ever present number 4-6 on the piano and others where selected pieces are published in a single volume. I bought the CD one year and the extra pieces were really nice, so nice I now bought the music to learn them all!

When I was at school we all prepared the same pieces anyway because they got the accompanist cheaper that way. Poor examiner, 15 consecutive renditions of the same 3 pieces, then same again for the next grade up!

Everyone seems to be choosing L'Elephant for Grade 3 piano but I think it's

I pick pieces that I genuinely like, rather than what I perceive as easiest, as I practice more and learn 10x faster that way.

Yeah, I started with Dumbo and got very bored with it very fast. I switched to Les Pifferari which was much more fun.

For the lower grades, I expect piano candidates stick mainly to the pieces in the book because it's cheaper, but by the time you get to grades 6 or 7 upwards, it makes sense to look at all the lists because you're going to be spending much longer learning the pieces, so it makes sense to pick something you like or something you would be best at. Also, for the higher grades the extra books you'd be buying are most likely useful books you'd be likely to buy anyway (eg Beethoven sonatas, Chopin nocturnes, WTC, etc), rather than something along the lines of jazzy pieces for easy piano where they've used the only good piece in the book for the grade exam or X collection of grade 2ish random classical pieces.

I doubt they do. On the press page they have pracitcal exam stats (there are theory and diploma ones there too), which just give the totals for each grade. We have previously asked the Chief Examiner (on the thread of that name) whether more detail was available, e.g. if there were stats by instrument such as how many harpsichord exams were taken in 2007 or what proportaion of piano exams were passed with distinction. The response there was a no, they had no further breakdown of the statistics available in any easily accesible form.

On the TG markform, you have to write down the list ref for the pieces you are playing, does this happen for AB exams? If it doesn't go on the form anywhere (e.g. if there is just 'List A piece'), then they won't be collecting that info.

The examiners do write down the piece reference code (e.g. A1, B2, C5) on the mark sheet next to their comments.

I remember a couple of syllabi ago where most candidates chose Creepy Crawly for grade 1 piano (including myself)

Car Expert

Guilty!!! That was 2003-04, wasn't it? The green book?

Yes and yes. I can imagine how annoying that must've been for the examiners to have to listen to it again and again and again

Car Expert

I LOVED THAT PIECE
I still play it sometimes, when I feel the need

I think that this may depend largely on teachers.
Some teachers don't give any consideration to pieces not in the Selected pieces books and Sadlly I think there are also a significant minority (I hope) who tell their students which peices they will play and with several students will have them all paying the same pieces.