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Original poster

Violin exam disaster

29 replies

KittyMcKitty · 26/11/2018 17:39

All v miserable here Sad DD had Grade IV violin today. She gets so nervous and for some reason was particularly bad today. Pieces went really well. Scales, arpeggios and chromatic were fine BUT she had a mind blank with the dominant 7th - she knows them so well but froze and only played 4 notes (the right notes). She felt sigh reading (usually a strength) was bad and aural (her weakest element) was OK.

Looking at the mark scheme am I right in thinking that the absolute max she can get for scales is 13 as dominant 7th was incomplete?

Dd is devestated - she should have passed comfortably but it looks like she will fail Sad

OP posts:
AliceLutherNeeMorgan · 26/11/2018 20:18

I can’t see that it will make the difference between a comfortable pass and a fail! It sounds like she will lose some marks in that section but if her pieces were good I am sure she’ll be fine.

It is awful when they come out and focus just.on the bit that went wrong though. Hope she is ok now

Trumpetboysmum · 26/11/2018 19:47

No I’m sure it won’t mean that at all - she will just drop some marks I think . And you can fail a section of an exam and still pass ( and even in fact do very well ) I’m sure it will turn out fine .

Original poster
KittyMcKitty · 26/11/2018 19:43

It’s ABRSM so 30 for each piece, 21 each for scales and sight reading and 18 for aural.

The pieces were better then in her grade 3 (which she got a high merit for). The scales (separate & slured were good), as were arpeggios and chromatic it’s just the dominant 7th. Looking at the mark scheme it would appear that if one element was incomplete then she will fail that section (which seems really rough).

Violin exam disaster
OP posts:
RedSkyLastNight · 26/11/2018 19:36

What exam board was she doing?
On the exam boards I'm familiar with the majority of the marks are for the pieces, so if she's done slightly worse than expected on the scales and sight reading it really won't affect her passing, unless she was only going to scrape through anyway.

I'd look up the mark scheme and show DD how badly she'd have to do to actually fail (at least this helped to calm my DS down when he was convinced there was no real point trying ...).