My son will be doing his Grade 7 piano exams in June this year. Is it possible to do the same exam twice at different centres? The reason I am asking is because although examiners should be giving similar marks this is really not the case based on our recent experience. My son performed the same piece at two different music festivals over the weekend and the adjudicators were ABRSM examiners. He played both times in a very similar manner. He says that and I who have heard the piece a few hundred times (Mozart: Presto) can say they sounded identical. Yet one adjudicator tore it to shreds and the other said it was very well played and awarded him a distinction mark. What if he has the bad luck of getting a marker for the ABRSM exam who thinks his playing is abysmal?

So if it's legal, what is the harm in performing the exam twice and using the higher mark?

I don't think it would be a problem having two goes in the same session, but I personally would think it a dreadful waste of money...

It is true that different examiners mark differently, but wouldn't it make more sense to retake in a different session (after the results for the first session are out) if you feel that the marks for the first sitting are lower than deserved? It would cost the same amount of money to retake later if necessary, and there is the (moderately high) chance that the mark the first time would be as good as expected and you won't need to pay for a retake.

I know of people who have taken the same exam twice in the same session. It's usually been people at Junior Departments where the marking is sometimes considered harsher than in the main session (I don't really agree that there is a difference).

I do think that AB examiners can mark differently but it's more likely to do with personal preferences than location of exam.

I wouldn't consider daughter taking the same exam twice in the same session though I would consider a resit if the mark wasn't what we wanted but only if the exam was grade 8.

I can totally relate to the festival situation daughter did one a two weeks, ago did really well and got some feedback. This week she did another festival played one of the same pieces and got much more feedback. We didn't see it as negative because in truth the whole purpose of entering the festival was to get ideas on how to improve. The second adjudicator had much more specific instrument knowledge than the first so the difference in detailed feedback was not unexpected. Even though we totally trust her teacher in this case it was fantastic to have another pair of ears and extra information.

Is there any urgent reason why your son needs a particular result in his Grade 7 this summer? I could imagine someone being desperate enough for a Grade 8 distinction before they go off to college or similar to go through the trouble and expense of doing it all twice - although if ever a child of mine wanted to do it I'd expect the money to come out of their pockets not mine.

There are anomalies between expected and recieved grades in ABRSM exams but I'm not sure I'd want to encourage my children to take the same exam twice in one session. Wouldn't it be telling them either - I don't trust you to give a good performance on a given day (in which case surely better to wait until next session?) or alternatively - I don't trust ABRSM to give a fair assessment of your work (in which case why take the exam in the first place?)

All that aside - it would be a fun experiment - so if he does go through with it - do come back and tell us how it went.

Thanks for the helpful replies. Good to know it's allowed by ABRSM. The fees X2 is not an issue (we pay ?50 an hour's lesson in London) so it's really like paying for an additional lesson. The reason why I thought it a good idea to do it in the same session and not wait for results and then resit if dissatisfied is because of the several months in between. It would be hard to be motivated, to do the same pieces and not be sure of the outcome (heaven forbid he gets a harsh examiner; that would be hard!).

Also, am I right in thinking that school (not a music school but a regular school) visits tend to have softer examiners? Over the two days the examiner typically sees some average, a large number of good and very few excellent players. So you see some merits and distinctions. The Headquarters attracts players of all abilities but a larger proportion of serious music students. So say, an average student who plays well may just end up with a merit at his school but a high pass in Portland Place (HQ).

No, I'm not trying to game the system!!

They pick from the same (vast) pool of examiners : so there's no difference.

I actually think doing this would be a good idea - and (you may think I'm joking about this next part but I'm not) it might be a good idea to sneak some kind of small recording device into each of the two exams, so that if the marks come out to be particularly different, you could take the issue to the board and prove that despite the difference in marks, the performance in the two exams was very similar. Just a thought...

Now, I'm fairly sure that sneaking a recording device in would not be allowed, and if you were found out (which you would be if you sent the recording to the AB) you would be disqualified. I'm not 100% sure on that but I'm pretty sure I read it somewhere recently.

Exam reg 12 d:

There's also the possibility of the exams being at the same time, or at least close enough to make getting to them both difficult if not impossible.

No in our experience you would be quite wrong in this assumption. My daughter has taken exams via special visit, JD and normal session. The harshist examining has been via the special visit that's probably not surprising as she has taken more exams in special visits than any other way. Then again we wouldn't find out if the examiner of an open session was harsh because it would be unlikely we knew anyone else taking an exam at the same centre. When I talk about harsh examining I mean everyone in the session getting a low result not just disappointment in daughters result.

If you really want a distinction then better to wait until son has everything in place before taking the exam. We also know someone who got a merit, retook in the hope of distinction the next session and failed.

Are you sure the music festivals were of equal standard and requirements? The same examiner might treat the same performance very differently if one festival was expecting professional standard and the other aimed to be encouraging for anyone who could play something.

Even if the expected standard was the same an examiner with more knowledge of either instrument, period or piece is likely to view it very differently.

I know of someone who strongly dislikes a particular type of music on the instrument they teach. Coming across them in a festival would be very confusing.

We don't have masses of festival experience and always view them first and foremost as a performance opportunity. Feedback is vital if you want to move forward. I'd rather have an opinion I didn't agree with than a gloss over

As a teacher dealing with pupils and parents expectations of results when examiners standards can vary so much (I am talking about examiners who inflate marks as much as the 'harsh' examiners here), is always a great difficulty. To that end I always avoid predicting results, telling students they deserve a distinction for example. However, whilst if pupils ask me about it I will always admit that marking a music exam can never be an exact science, and a degree of subjectivity is hard to avoid, there is a bigger goal at stake here - the aim to learn to perform and give of your best, and to realise that there are some things we cannot control (an examiner's response for example), but we must learn to focus on exactly all the things we can control (our own performance).

By doing what you are thinking of, it risks distracting your son. If he is very aware of the game of trying to beat the flaws of the examining system, he might concentrate excessively on the examiners reaction rather than his own performance. I certainly don't blame you for thinking of this, sometimes I wished I could do it with my best students myself. I fear it might represent being defeated by the system however. Whenever I come across bizzare marking, I start to get paranoid and looking for ways to avoid the exam system. In the end though I always come back, get my pupils to focus positively on their performance, keep my worries to myself and just hope that the next result helps to restore my faith in the system.

I'm not necessarily saying that you shouldn't do what you are saying, just expressing a possible concern and advising that you handle very carefully how you explain the reason to your son why you are doing what you are doing.

If anything the examiner who liked my son's piece was at a festival with very advanced and proficient pianists and the examiner who was so critical was at a Festival where the level of piano playing was quite mediocre.

Am I alone in thinking this sounds a bit daft, really? As much as anything, I'd not want to go through the sweat of doing the thing twice if I were the kid - once is surely enough? Does getting a distinction at the one attempt really cancel out a non-distinction at the other? All you can say from that is that the one performance didn't meet an examiner's criteria on that day, when the other met the examiner's criteria on another day: examiners are trained and indeed quality-controlled by the board to apply fairly carefully thought-out measures to given aspects of performance, and it's not just about how many of the notes were right or wrong, there's much more to it than that. Even someone who does get a distinction can only say they played well enough for that at the time, not that they're playing at that level all the time, and if you want to display a wall or folder of certificates with only distinctions in, then whom are you fooling if you achieve that by making as many attempts as it takes to get said grades? There is as much to be learned by not always getting the higher award, in any case....

So yes, the AB, but not Trinity, lets you waste the cash if you want to, but I'm not convinced it's necessary.

Being the parent of a serial esam taker I can assure you that on occasions the examiners do run to their own agenda. I'm not saying this in a sour grapes way I can point to one time where I thought daughter was possibly over marked because the examiner loved the fact she was taking the exam on an unusual instrument. To be fair this examiner is probably the most inspiring of all the examiners she met in her far too many exams and she is still playing music by the jazzer he mentioned to her in the exam. She has certainly had some very positive feedback on her playing of that instrument from people who should know.

There are probably two occasions where the marking has been unfair and one where the examiners conduct definately wasn't acceptable (not child protection), on recorder the mark was effected due to examiners lack of instrument knowledge.

The two times the mark was lower than the teachers expected everyone in the session received low marks. I don't think denial that this happens is helpful and I think ways of ensuring good quality control could and should be investigated after all we do pay for the service.

Having said that I agree with your other points and I wouldn't enter my daughter twice in the same session for the same exam. I also agree that having distinction at grade 8 doesn't always mean that much more than a merit or a pass.

How often are examiners scrutinised by a senior trainer? Performance review is everywhere now and most people have it year.

Absolutely spot on!!!! Seriously well said!!!! especially the bit about the folder of certificates!!! Love it!, i'm the kind of mum who would give my child a pat on the back even if they scraped through an exam with 101!!!

I'm not sure this would be a very good lesson for your son
I understand that you want the best for him and therefore want him to get the highest mark
But putting him through the stress of an exam twice for the sake of proving a point and maybe getting a few extra marks doesn't seem too fair. I hope this isn't offensive - the fact that youre willing to pay so much etc. for your son shows that youre a very devoted parent
I just think that in my shoes if I had a kid, I would teach them that they need to do nothing but work hard to get a good result and they get what they get - the world isn't always a fair place and tricking the system to get a better result, no matter how harmlessly it may be done, wouldn't be a good lesson for a child to learn
All the other kids have to do one exam and get what theyre given - even if you can afford to do it twice, he should do it once like everyone else

An exam mark is just a snapshot fo that perfrmance at that time. It can be much better, much worse, or round about the same as the candidate's "usual level" of playing.
Apart from Grade 8, where the level achieved can sometimes be perceived to make a difference, the actual mark obtained for one play-through to one examiner probably means very little. What does really matter, though, is what the candidate has learnt along the way in preparing to get to the stage where he/she feels comfortably ready to do an exam, and how that learning is helping that person do develop as a well-rounded musician. As a teacher I would much rather that a candidate was well set up for the next level of learning and got an average mark, than have an unexpectedly good result after less thorough preparation.

If a distinction or merit doesn't mean much more than a pass, does a pass mean much more than a (reasonably narrow) fail?

As several people have said it's the mark on the day and a candidate may well go in and get distinction but they may be getting round technical issues. The pass might have solid technique but didn't perform very well on the day or they may be weak on sight reading or aural which will improve in time.

Someone who fails might come back more willing to work and learn so maybe it's not a big deal

People are different and what motivates them will be very personal.

Right, I understand this, but then surely the same qualifications (getting a pass in spite of technical issues, worse than normal performance on the day) apply to a pass vs. narrow fail? There seems to be a stigma associated with being determined to receive a distinction, and people say that distinction/merit isn't so meaningful anyway, but few would say that it's not worth retaking to get a pass, or suggest that a pass isn't meaningful. Surely the passing mark and standard is arbitrary - if tomorrow the AB were to raise the pass mark to 130, nobody would complain if people retook exams to get more than 130 marks. I can just as well say that MY standard for "passing" an exam is distinction, and that would be no more or less silly than seeing 100 as the pass mark.

I'm not opposed to people doing a retake , far from it, just not sure that it's worth the money to go from a merit to distinction unless you are not going to take another exam on that insatrument. Grade 8 seems to be the one to resit and I know lots of people who have done so. At the end of the day it's their choice. Yes retake a fail to get a pass if that's what ithe candidate wnats to do. Not sure as a parent I'd be keen, think I'd rather spend the money on lessons/music to fill gaps and go for the next grade. I'd also be very strict over practice if that was causing issues.

You also want to consider whether a high mark is an important objective. My daughter did grade 3 violin a while ago, and chose a little renaissance pieces with some odd modal bits and false relations. The examiner criticised wrong notes (which were in fact the right ones, accompanied by her dad we know this), but she did better than she could reasonably have expected on the sightreading. The overall mark was fair, but the components were unfair (arguably). So we decided to see it as a little lesson in how life is going to be...

Not that this is entirely relevant to the question, but so far I have found the ABRSM markings for exams to be consistent. I know someone who having scraped through a violin exam on which she was extremely nervous with exactly 100, retook it at the next session actually as a confidence building exercise. She said she was not at all nervous on the second take and got........ exactly 100. Different examiners, which would tend to indicate that 100 was how she was playing at that time.

After I came out of my grade 4 I sat with the marking guidelines and calculated what I thought I would have scored and came up with 116, and that was what I got. For grade 5 the same exercise came up with 107, which is what I got so I can't say I have been marked unfairly so far. I will say of the comments didn't really fit with the marks, (actually being unhelpfully too kind), but the marks fit how I felt I had performed.

Back to the original question, if someone wants to take the exam twice in one session why not? Its their time and their cash. (How can you be sure you will not get the same examiner twice?) I would be really interested to hear how that turns out if you go ahead with it.

This happened accidently to one of my daughters with a violin exam. She had a one to one tutor who entered her and then in the same session she was entered by her school for a special visit as the HOM misunderstood when she told him she was taking her exam in that session, didnt see her name on his list and just entered her. She decided to go ahead and do both.

The exams were within 10 days of each other.

First one :
Pieces 24,21, 22
Scales 11
S/R 13
Aural 14
Total 105

Second exam (Special Visit)
Pieces 23, 22, 23
Scales 11
S/R 18
Aural 15
Total 112

I think that says it all

Interesting. Only major change is the sight reading. Did she feel the second sight reading was particularly better?

Perhaps she had seen it before..?

W

Yes ! It was the same piece of music!

That really does say it all.