BOSTES 2011 HSC Music 1 Aural Skills - Markers Guidelines and Feedback

In better responses, candidates:

• understood the structure and concepts, providing examples with musical support and accurately identifying performing media
• demonstrated an understanding of genre-specific musical terminology and used it appropriately
• were articulate and focused in their answer, elaborating points clearly and with some detail
• provided well-structured responses in which the chronological order of each section was clearly identified
• expressed the answer through descriptions of structure and concepts
• accurately used traditional and graphic notation.

In weaker responses, candidates:

• provided brief and superficial responses
• wrote poorly structured answers and included irrelevant or poorly labelled diagrams
• confused the meaning of musical material and gave personal opinions rather than discussed concepts
• frequently used incorrect musical terminology, such as riff, monophonic and register
• repeated points in their answers
• made general statements about the musical excerpt and did not draw conclusions about relevant musical material
• restricted answers to a simplistic discussion of dynamics
• frequently confused the performing media, especially strings, brass and woodwind instruments
• provided narrative responses rather than factual musical observations
• did not relate points to the musical excerpt
• were unable to draw accurate conclusions.