When starting to learn new exam pieces.

Do you choose pieces that you can you play through at the correct speed at sight, making only a few mistakes,

or,

do you choose ones that you would need to start very slowly and learn in small sections.

If you can play the pieces at the correct speed at sight I think you might be on the wrong grade!

Some of each, and everything in-between

I think this is different for different people. On viola, I'm a fairly decent sight-reader after years and years of ensemble practice. I'm vaguely considering grade 8, and I could read through the pieces I would play getting most of the notes and the "essence" of quickly. But on piano, though I have DipABRSM there are very few pieces in grade 8 or even lower grades which I could sight-read at tempo accurately, even though I've reached a significantly higher standard of performance. So my criteria for choosing appropriate exam pieces for piano would be different than for viola.

Indeed.

I find the question quite strange really, i work on a number of pieces both on and off the syllabus with my teacher based on what she thinks would be good for me to learn to develop my playing., So by the time I get to choosing EXAM pieces the question is more " which 3 pieces out of the 10 or so that I've already learned, would I like to polish up for an exam?"

Although I'm not planning any exams other than my clari diploma at the end of the year, I would choose pieces that I enjoy playing. Whatever category they fit in. Actually, I wouldn't care if they fitted in either of the above categories. And it probably wouldn't even cross my mind, anyway...

I'd absolutely agree with this. Looking at exam pieces, I choose material that suits the music that I enjoy playing. Although there are the three sections to pick from, I certainly go for the music I know I will enjoy, I enjoy playing it, and hopefully the examiner will enjoy listening to it.

I don't purposely target what could be perceived a harder, or easer piece, technical challenge isn't the issue for me with music, even the simplest pieces can bring a huge amount of playing and listening enjoyment.

Though, with exam pieces, they are chosen to provide you with a challenge that evaluates whether or not you are progressing with your technique with the instrument in question. Assuming that you are stepping through the grades in a progressive fashion, I would imagine that exam pieces will take time and effort to learn, breaking down sections and fortifying areas that are problematic.

In fact, in an exam situation, this is exactly how I'd approach the sight reading section. Unless you are looking at a piece that is well within your technical ability, I'd have thought there would be sections that would require a larger amount of attention.

I don't think this is necessarily true. I know that for me on the oboe being able to play a piece "at the correct speed at sight, making only a few mistakes" doesn't mean I can play it well enough for an exam and it might take quite a bit of work to get there. But after reading lilly763's remarks I think it might well be different on the oboe than on the piano for me too.

Like many others here, neither of the scenarios that morton suggests would constitute criteria for choosing exam pieces for me. I like flobiano's approach which would help to broaden repertoire generally. More work, though, and I think I'm definitely lazier than her!

I doubt that is true...my teacher likes to keep a good turnover over pieces and does tend to move me on to the next one sooner than I probably would myself.

I agree that for oboe, learning the notes and the rhythm is often (not always) the easy bit and there is a lot of work after that to get it up to a suitable standard.