Examinations

More information on the A2 exams is included in the table below:


Listening test 45 minutes 10% of AL January and Summer
Students must answer four questions on unfamiliar extracts of music. The questions are based on music from 1550 to the present day, but they do not include music studied as part of the course. Where appropriate, students must identify the genre, form or structure. Students must insert both rhythm and pitch in a short melodic extract, and they may be asked to recognise and/or comment on the following detail:
  • melody: sequence, ostinato, riff, melisma, ornamentation, major/minor/pentatonic melodies with the addition of modal/whole tone melodies, inversion, augmentation, diminution, chromaticism;
  • tonality and harmony: use of major/minor tonality, major/minor/diminished/dominant seventh chords, cadences, use of pedal, chromaticism, atonality, augmented sixth chords, suspensions, cadential second inversion chords, tierce de picardie, tonic/dominant pedal, modulation to more remote keys;
  • metre, tempo and rhythm: type of metre/tempo, regular/changing metres/tempi, rubato, syncopation, rhythmic ostinato, with the addition of irregular and cross rhythms; and
  • timbre and texture: voice types and instruments, a capella, unison, monophonic/homophonic/polyphonic, imitation, canon, drone and pedal with the addition of fugue and antiphony.

 

Written exam 1 hour 30 mins 10% of AL January and Summer
Students must answer two essay questions. Question 1 tests students on the set work concerto studied:
  • George Gershwin: Piano Concerto in F;
  • Berg: Violin Concerto;
  • Bartok: Concerto for Orchestra; or
  • Gerry Murphy: Dialects for Uilleann Pipes and Orchestra.
Students must bring an unmarked score of the set work for use during the exam. Students must answer either Question 2 or 3 depending on the optional unit they have studied:
  • 16th Century Music, focusing on the work of Orlando di Lasso, Giovanni Gabrieli and Thomas Tallis; or
  • 20th Century Music, focusing on the work of Aaron Copland, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Dmitri Shostakovich.