As a matter of curiosity - can you retake ABRSM music exams to get better grades? Ie on a practical if you think you can get distinction when you got a merit etc, or once you pass you are stuck with your actual grade?

Also if you do fail - can you resit? I've never heard of anyone failing - but presumably people do.

Is there a limit to how many times you can retake? Although I guess if the syllabus is valid for 2 years you only have 6 times to take it (maximum).

Just curious, that's all.

Yes you can take whichever exam you want as many times as you're willing to pay for it. Don't mention that you're re-sitting an exam you've already passed here though: it tends to result in a lot of offended people and many people telling you that you shouldn't .


Yes, people do fail (not many though) and yes one can re-sit if one fails.


As I said as many times as you like but as you correctly point out if the syllabus changes you'd have to do the new one. I'd advise anyone re-sitting an exam failed, or otherwise, to have a fresh set of pieces so that they're not just doing the same thing over again for many months.

I hope this makes things clear and that you never have to use any of this information .

Yeah people do fail, i failed my g6!!

yeah i failed it nov 2002. I was really dissapointed because i never got less than a distinction in any abrsm exam before. I don't know what happened in the exam but looking back on it (its a bit of a joke now!!) I think it was probably a sudden mind block and because I play from memory, I was really stuck!!

Anyway i resat it in march 2003, and I got 138, so yeah resits are fine and you don't ever need to mention the other one.

Unless you especially NEED to get a better grade for some reason (ie to get into uni or something) then I'd never recommend it - especially playing the same pieces. You'd do yourself more favours (and learn more in the long run) having a fresh set of pieces if you decided to retake just to improve your mark (if it's a case of a near-miss fail, then maybe, but I'd still hate to slog on with the same 3 pieces for 3 more months!). However, even though I think generally it's not a great idea, yes, it can be done as many times as you like.

You can retake the exams as many times as you like but I dont really see the point if you have passed.

A question from your signature really, when you say dipABRSM violin do you mean that you have one or are working for one?

P.S. 142 at grade 8 piano is amazing, well done .

thanks, i have one (dipABRSM)

Wow, that's amazing. What pieces did you play?

Do I assume correctly by the fact that you did one GCSE this year that you're still in school? I'm not suprised that you got an A* in music if you're that good .

I retook grade 4 after failing, so people do it. And hey, some people retake to get a higher distinction

I suppose some people have the spare cash to do that....