Music Exam Mess Up

[crazycarol]

Any music teachers or anyone with any knowledge of this? DD took a music exam (AB) today. She had a final lesson this morning with her teacher who when preparing the list for the examiner realised that she had prepared 2 songs from the same list! They are supposed to do one from each of lists A B & C. All the songs are in different books and dd has never seen the lists, she (and I) just assumed that the teacher would advise appropriately! Well the morning of your exam is not the time to learn a new song as you have to sing from memory!

The teacher advised her to sing the songs as prepared, ie 2 from 1 list, 1 from another, and none from the third (don't know if it was in that order, but you should get the picture).

My question is how much will she be penalised for this? Will she get no marks for the piece or ?? DD is devastated as she really wanted to do well and loves singing.

Not had that happen to me, but I would've though that they would understand. Usually the lists are so that you can't sing 3 pieces all the same, they have different techniques etc so as long as the pieces were sufficiently different I doubt they'd really mind.
What grade was it? If it's early they really should be lenient.
Hope its okay for her x

Thanks, It was Grade 3 so not exactly a beginner, although it was her first ever singing exam. She has done other music exams on an instrument, but all the pieces were in the one book so it was easy to see what was required and her teacher (a different one!) always prepared her thoroughly - and she did very well!

I have known this to happen before. They have written to the teacher alerting them to their mistake and warning them that if the breach of exam regulations happens again their student may have their mark with held. I have never known a student to be penalised.
The exam board will keep a record of the teacher's mistake, for future reference.

An examiner who frequents another forum I use has said that when this happens they mark the exam as usual giving a provisional mark and write the comments and the marks in pencil not ink and refer the matter to the exam board who make the decision whether the mark can be awarded.

Thank you for the positive comments. It is good to hear that all may not be lost. Although it did impact on the whole test as dd was wound up & she is a nervous performer at the best of times.

Also just wondering is this WHOLLY the teacher's fault or should dd be partially to blame? I haven't spoken to the teacher yet as I thought if I spoke to her yesterday that anger would be speaking, so I have avoided that until I calmed down.

It is the teacher's fault. I am a music teacher, and if I let that happen I would take full responsibility. It hasn't though - I'm horrified actually.

I did exactly this with my first candidate, five years ago. I thought I had checked the syllabus but obviously misread it. Sent the child in with two List A pieces, a List C and no List B.

I only realised when I got my results back from the Board accompanied by a letter to me politely pointing out the error and asking me not to do it again. The candidate was marked as usual on the three pieces she presented (and did very well!). The examiner didn't tell her about my error but took it in his stride. And I have been very careful ever since.

So based on my experience I can't imagine there will be a problem for your DD. Although the teacher will feel pretty silly...

It is the teacher's fault. I hope they were suitably apologetic!

Just thought I would come back and update (useful for anyone else with similar disaster!). We haven't yet got the marks / comments sheet but she got 115/150, a PASS. DD is happy to pass but now knows that she may have got a merit if she wasn't too stressed out by the situation, so it looks like she wasn't penalised at all (or may be only a mark or to).
And I am still waiting for an apology from the teacher, dd got one in her last lesson but her comments to me were "you know you can tell when someone doesn't exactly mean it" Well guess who has handed in her notice to the teacher?

That's a relief !
My DS managed to answer 2 questions out of section A on his GCSE history exam instead of 1 from each A and B. He came out of exam very pleased with himself as this was his best subject, only to get a disappointing mark as the max he could get was 1/2 available marks .
He had to admit later that "read the instructions first" advice is actually useful :) so he's been reading the instructions first ever since.
Lets hope the teacher will do the same in the future and well done to DD for not crumbling under pressure!