Is ABRSM marking becoming v erratic?

[PantTwizzler]

Dd has just got her grade 8 piano result back. She got 109. When she did a mock with her (very experienced) teacher, she got a high merit. She came out of the exam feeling like it had gone well and is extremely disappointed. We don’t have the mark sheet yet but raw marks only. Apparently she failed two of her pieces.

We need to see the mark sheet before deciding what to do but this is just to ask whether others have found ABRSM marking increasingly erratic. Incidentally, another of the teacher’s pupils got a very similar mark for grade 5, and teacher said he didn’t even deserve to pass. My elder daughter passed her ARSM Dip on the same day and she was frankly very lucky!

I’m wondering if examiners are sometimes harsher with piano because they are all pianists. When the same dd does bassoon exams she always gets a merit or distinction and I don’t feel she’s significantly better at bassoon.

Apologies for long waffle!

Some astonishing feats on here! Well done to all and their supportive parents!

It's always been a bit weird, the best (worst) time was the examiner that coughed and spluttered throughout the exam, the time the next room in the hotel that was being used had drilling going on (was refunded because every candidate "failed") and the time the piano was so out of tune, plus one peddle was broken that we were offered a free resit (didn't bother because she had scrapped a pass). We are fine thankfully with the main grades, she's doing diploma singing but it's quite a different beast!

We’ve had screaming from alleyway next door (distinction) and dodgy piano in big draughty church... can’t remember what grade that got! My 11yo ds is now teaching himself the piano after false starts in flute and sax; I’m not sure if I can go through it all again!

We just asked for a remark for my daughters grade 8 piano exam and she went up by 14 marks!

Hi, Lili. That is a great news! How long did the appeal process take? My daughter’s piano teacher thinks her G5 piano exam was harshly marked, and we have just filled an appeal.

Absolutely! They are inconsistent and I find it offensive you have to pay SO much more money to ask for a re-look at the grade when the material had been filmed and submitted due to COVID. My DD was really upset - not because she hadn't done her best or failed to practice but because she absolutely knew she did well - she had months of lockdown to practice! The assessor kept referring to the pieces being played too loudly. It was just nonsense. In her last exam where she was not nearly as prepared she got a distinction! We feel it to be elitist, unaffordable and are not continuing with ABRSM.

Same here ... one Grade 8 boy, totally deserved to fail, got decent pass. A second one, in the next session, top pupil, Grade 5, over prepared, never put a foot wrong (and I have the recording) scraped a pass when every other exam has been a distinction . Appeal time. It's one exam and in the great scheme of things who cares ... but it's so demotivating for a sensitive child.

Has anyone ever appealed a face-to-face ABRSM exam? How could that be reviewed fairly? DS just missed distinction by 2 marks and his teacher / accompanist is adamant his marks in the pieces should have been higher...

Music graduate here. I know the abrsm system inside out.
It's much more likely the teacher gave your child inflated expectations than a marker being off. The training for these examiners is incredibly strict. You can't become an abrsm examiner if you're more than three marks off what the board considers standard marking.
Perhaps the teacher's standards are just not high enough.

Sorry for yet another post. I feel the need to explain more.
The world of music HAS incredibly high standards. It's one of the more competitive spheres there is. That has always been the case and will continue to be the case.
I understand how this can be hard for parents but if your child is truly interested in music then they need to keep getting better REGARDLESS.
Using an appeal mechanism will not help your child in this world. My best advice would be to get a better teacher and have them resit the exam. Really I say this with all the sympathy I can, but if your child is trying to get into the world of music, trying to use an appeal mechanism will not do them in favours.
Their lives will be a series of seasonal auditions and reauditions. It's super stressful. To survive you just have to love it and be able to take it all in your stride. There is no appeal process if you lose your position with an orchestra you've been working with for a decade...

Presumably you have a recording of the exam if it was done online? Ask another teacher/examiner to evaluate it.

Our experience of doing the recorded exams has shown that they can be playing perfectly during lessons and practice but as soon as you stick the camera on, the mistakes slip in, this will be magnified in the exam room. It also only takes the teacher to be out by one mark for every section in their personal estimate to make quite a difference to the marks. With regards to pieces being too loud, we really made sure there was an exaggerated contrast in dynamics as it is harder to hear the details in a recording. You have to decide if the child can handle the stress or if it's better not to do exams. Music should be a joy.

Interesting to read this. It's very difficult to judge exam marking because you weren't there in the room at the time. A student can say they "made no mistakes" or made more mistakes than usual etc, but even experienced performers can be notoriously inaccurate about judging their own performances, students even more so. And it's not just about the number of mistakes.

I've put students in for ABRSM exams for some years and found them generally consistent and predictable, However I did have one this year who lost marks in the scale section due to what seemed like a very subjective comment on the part of the examiner, referring to a criterion that is not mentioned anywhere in the spec. That struck me as strange, although it's a only a few marks and the candidate's result overall seemed in keeping with their level.

DD plays a very unusual instrument and is not as good as her older sister but until G5 always did a lot better - we used to say that just walking through the door with it added at least 5 marks to the final score. Having said that because it was so unusual she was frequently invited to attend the examiners training sessions where everyone in the room was effectively marking her performance (a dummy run exam) and the senior examiner then compared all their marks with his and pulled in those who were more than a couple of marks out for some moderation.

Eldest suddenly started getting excellent results when attending a special visit arranged out of the main season. Tended to have very experienced examiners who had seen it all before many times and did some moderating/training of examiners for ABRSM.

I accompany exams and usually get a bit of a listen outside the door before I am called in. Some examiners are great, others seem to be on another planet. The comments simply don't tally with what I heard with my own ear, or are so outrageously harsh. Like for Gr 1 violin being told that the candidate had a fluctuation in tone quality across different strings. This was so minor, it was unbelievable, and did not warrant 3 marks off otherwise impeccable scales. AT GRADE 1!!!!

A minor hesitation over one note is turned into "inconsistent tempo", one wrong note becomes "incorrect notes in places". Significant marks off.

Another examiner would overlook such tiny things and go for the overall picture, maybe take one mark off for the niggles.

It's the the kid coming out saying "I played no wrong notes" and that turning out to be wrong. I actually am in the exam and hear these things myself!

I have found organists and pianists the worst. Examiners that play other instruments are generally much more level headed. Sadly not many about.

This has been really interesting to read. I have two children who play various instruments and have seen up to grade 5 only. The variation is really quite huge. One of my children got a distinction in grade 3 but only a pass in grade 4 and was disappointed. Looking at the marking sheet, near perfect marks on one piece and apparently nowhere near on the others - that's life. I wasn't there as they visit the school. I just said it doesn't matter, it means you can move on. Piano was submitted separately, by video, and he scraped a pass. Quite a bit lower than anticipated and compared to previous, but again, we just took it as being a good achievement during covid times, move on.

Other child went to a general session and got a not dissimilar mark on grade 5 (different instrument) but far more spread out in terms of distribution of marks. He probably got what he deserved, judging from what I heard and the practice done.

In comparison, we do singing exams with LCM and I find them extremely consistent. My kid could predict his marks to within 3% once he'd done a few grades! In these exams, theory questions make up 20% of the grade all the way up to 8 as you don't take a theory exam at grade 5 like you do with ABRSM. All 3 have taken these exams and they've always come out as expected, as have the other pupils - experienced teacher. However, even then, you can get a rogue examiner. I know a complaint was submitted on one occasion last year and the teacher was ready to walk out if that same examiner had been there the next time, he was that bad. He even marked down for using tracks rather than live music - which is what the exam is designed to be for! Very odd. I don't know the outcome as we weren't involved.

Results come out much more quickly than they used to. Does that imply less moderation?

Interesting to re-read this zombie thread! The same DD who got 109 in her grade 8 piano got a merit in her ARSM diploma (recorded at home).
And a distinction in her ARSM bassoon diploma.
I dunno, it still seems very arbitrary to me.

Interesting, I'm a piano teacher who has all but given up on ABRSM. I now use Trinity (and LCM for jazz piano), which I find much more consistent. One noticeable difference is that Trinity record all their exams, which means if that the appeal process is very different, and that knowledge presumably holds the examiners to account rather more. The exam that completely finished me for ABRSM was a grade 4 where my student was marked down for speed in a piece that was being played almost exactly to the composer's own metronome mark. Then in the last exam session I requested that the examiner be prepared to repeat instructions if my grade 6 Ukrainian candidate was distracted. All her family bar her parents were still in Ukraine, and she was very distressed - this was about two weeks after the invasion started. They did eventually agree to pass the message on; I wasn't asking for any leniency in playing standards, just understanding if her attention waivered between items!

I haven't felt that any of my Trinity marks have been a shock, usually a maximum of five marks either side of my estimate.

ABRSM exams are recorded too now on the iPads that the examiners write their reports with. I'm fed up with ABRSM too, they have no consistency in marking and their online systems are rubbish!

Interesting, I’ve gone back fully to Abrsm and the marking has been much more consistent for me recently and I haven’t had the one examiner I mentioned upthread since (hope to god he’s not due this time, I’ve one who will definitely fail if he does)

Interesting thread! My DS has consistently done better in music grades with LCM than with ABRSM, but I had put that down to LCM being his first study instrument, and ABRSM being second and third... Luckily he's doing it for pleasure rather than because he needs particular results for future plans, so neither he nor I are too fussed about the details.