General knowledge questions

These are usually multiple choice, tick-a-box, circle your answer, one word (e.g. give one feature/name an instrument/name a composer or artist etc) or multiple point answers (e.g. give three features/name two instruments/compare the tempo of both etc). General knowledge questions make up the bulk of the listening paper and can be considered the easiest type of question in the paper.

You can find these questions AND practice tasks for general knowledge questions here

Extended writing questions

Each exam will contain only one extended writing question. This is a question usually worth 8-9 marks which is approximately 10% of the entire exam. Students are asked to write an extended paragraph - one A4 page - describing an extract of music.

Sometimes the question is linked to a theme and students must link their descriptive writing to that theme. For example 'this extract describes the movement of hens and chickens'. With this particular example students' responses must relate to how the music successfully represents the movement of the hens and chickens. This is the ONLY question in the listening exam where the quality of students' responses are also assessed.

You can find these questions AND practice tasks for extended writing questions here

Comparison questions

Each exam will only contain one comparison question. The comparison question is typically worth anywhere between 12-16 marks.

This type of question involves students listening to two extracts and answering questions in which they are comparing the two extracts, both similarities and differences. Sometimes the comparison question will contain a short extended writing style question, like you will have read about above. However, the extended writing portion will never be as substantial as the actual extended writing question itself and will be worth considerably less marks.

You can find these questions AND practice tasks for comparison questions here

Melodic dictation questions

Each exam will only contain one notation/dictation question. This type of question is worth 12-16 marks, occasionally more.

The notation/dictation question involves students studying a printed score (notated extract of music using traditional staff notation) and answering questions related to the score. This question involves students filling in missing notes in one or two bars of music, which itself is a sub-question worth 6 to 8 marks. The other sub-questions are general knowledge questions.

You can find these questions AND practice tasks for notation dictation questions here