Preparing for Exam Season
As a teacher our goal is to help our students hit their musical learning goals. You may have students who are following curriculum from one of the big graded exam providers, at the end of this learning process we have the exam stage. If your student is going through their first or twentieth exam, the same considerations should be made to ensure the best possible outcome. Every student wants to do well in these exams, so as a teacher our job involves ensuring they are prepared to hit the highest mark. Sure, sometimes you just have a bad day and don't do quite as well as you hoped, but let's always keep in mind we should be aiming for the top tier.
- Preparation - This is the point to prepare the exam material. Use the lessons to run over content with students and do some practise runs of the test. Most of the exam boards have marking schemes available on their website (If not, I'm sure a simple and friendly email requesting this would give you something to go off). If the exam has free choice pieces be sure the student has all the required print outs and notation for it. Some exams will also use pre-determined pieces from their curriculum, be sure the student has been going over these. Consider any theory you need to know or any explanatory questions that may arise on the day. Guitar exams for instance, will ask the student to play a selection of chords and scales from memory.
- Mindset - Help your student build confidence in their abilities. They want to walk into that exam room with their head held high on the day. If your student enters an exam feeling uneasy or uncertain, it could show in their performance. You can always expect a degree of nerves, especially on the first exam as this will be a new situation. During your practise sessions, reassure your student of their progress and help them see they are doing a good job. If the student can see they are doing well in the practise runs, this will help them feel more comfortable at the idea of doing this for real.
- Revision - After the time you've spent working over the curriculum with the student, there shouldn't actually be that much need for conventional revision, but it is always useful for the student to spend some time just reading over some of the concepts and theory questions that arise. For instance, you may get asked to explain function of certain parts of the instrument or get asked a theory question. The theory concepts should be recitable from memory, especially at higher grades where this becomes more prominent. I personally always advise students to try to memorize as much of the material as possible, even though there are sections where notation may be permitted. Playing from memory allows focus on the performance, with the notation as a safety net.
- Practise - This goes without saying. Practise, practise, practise and then practise some more. Students should always be keeping on top of their practise schedules but should maybe consider bumping this up a little when exams are drawing nearer. During lessons with the student make notes of any areas they should focus on. If your student is having trouble playing scales, get them to focus on scales that week. If they're having trouble with time keeping, that should be that weeks practise focus. This detailed practise scheduling can fine tune any issues that may arise.