How to prepare ABRSM exam?

[MMichelle]

My DD is going to take her piano grade 5 ABRSM exam soon. She is quite familiar with the 3 pieces that need to be tested during the exam, because she can practise them at home by herself.

However, she stuck in other parts of the exam, aural, scale and sightreading.... May I know how to practise these skills at home without the assistance of teacher?? Any tools or practice materials that can help?

Sight-reading: ABRSM publish books of sample sight-reading exercises to practise.

Aural: ABRSM have a app for this. One version for grades 1-5 and another for grades 6-8.

Scales & arpeggios: practise a random selection every day. Put pieces of paper in a jar and then pick out a few each day to practise.

Paper in a jar is fun when they are little but you don't necessarily get through them all .. and there are a lot at Grade 5. I'd make a nice spreadsheet ...

... or use a website

www.therandomscalemachine.com/

You need to find someone to test your DD so that she'll know she's doing right or not.

My DD just passed her piano G5 exam last year. I found some digital tools for her to train her aural skills during exam preparation. You can try an aural training app called Auralbook. The AI voice of the woman is a bit annoying, and discouraged sometimes... but she can analysis your performance and give feedback instantly.

Good luck to your DD!

There's no way around it, scales are simply repetition. Forwards, backwards, to different rhythms, in random order.

The other thing to practice if she's not used to performing is to carry on, in time, if she makes mistakes on the pieces. Even if she plays them perfectly at home, she needs to practice with pieces she's not so familiar with specifically to keep going regardless.

Paper in a jar is fun when they are little but you don't necessarily get through them all
No, you have an in jar and an out jar. Pick out a selection every day from the in jar, if it is okay put it in the out jar, if there are mistakes practice it and put it back in the in jar so it comes up again sooner. Work through over a few days till all in out jar then start again. I did this for grade 8s, works really well.