IB Music/Exam/Listening Paper

The Listening Paper consists of 7 or 8 questions to be answered in two & a half or three hours with extracts of music to listen to on a personal cd player.

The questions are divided into section A & B.

The 3 questions in section A are based upon a prescribed set work. Candidates can take an unmarked score into the exam. The first question is based on an extract of the prescribed score [a listening segment, usually a movement from the prescribed piece, will be provided for this first question]. The second question is a more general question referring to the score in general. There is no listening extract for this question.

In section B candidates have to answer 4 questions based on extracts on the CD. These can be from any time period, genre or culture, though contemporary popular music is rare to non-existent on the IB exams. Questions are usually along the following lines,

'Describe what you hear in this extract, relating to appropriate issues concerning musical, structural and contextual characteristics.'

The 8th question asks candidates to compare and contrast two of the selections heard in Questions 4-7 with regard to two specific musical links.

The section A prescribed work for 2008-2010 is Dido and Aeneas- [[w:Henry_Purcell|Henry Purcell]

The Section A prescribed work for 2011 is El Salon Mexico by Copland and Mozart's Symphony No. 41 ("Jupiter").

The Section A prescribed works for 2013 are Xian's Yellow River Piano Concerto and Classical Symphony by Prokofiev.