The sight-reading test is the component we see prepared least, which is strange, because it's the most preparable. The parameters are published. ABRSM tells you, grade by grade, which keys, which time signatures, which note values, and which hand positions can appear.
Nothing in the test is a surprise except the specific notes.
So preparation isn't "get better at reading", it's closing the specific gaps your grade can test. Here's the map.
The shape of the ABRSM progression
Across the grades, difficulty arrives in a fixed order, and knowing the order tells you what to drill:
- Grades 1 to 2: five-finger land, and hands join at 2. Simple keys (C, G and F majors with D minor and A minor beside them; D major with E and G minors arrives at Grade 2), simple time. Hands play separately until Grade 2 puts them together, and that join is the killer: keeping the pulse while both hands read. From Grade 1 the harmonic-minor leading tone can appear as an accidental: it isn't a trap, it's the syllabus telling you which minor you're in.
- Grades 3 to 5: out of the five-finger box, keys multiply. Grade 3 lets the hands move outside a fixed position, sharps and flats accumulate, simple syncopation appears at Grade 5, and the left hand stops being an afterthought. In our experience, most of the lost marks in this band are left-hand marks.
- Grades 6 to 8: texture and remote keys. More voices, wider leaps, less predictable rhythm, and by Grade 8 the awkward-key country: B major and D flat major, on top of the sharp-side minors that arrived at Grades 5 and 6 (F sharp and C sharp), where the hand geography is unfamiliar precisely because repertoire visits them less.
What to drill, band by band
Grades 1 to 2. Drill steady-pulse note naming until it's boring, then drill it with the metronome. Practise tiny two-bar fragments and force yourself never to stop. The habit of continuing is worth more than any note accuracy at this level, because it is the habit the examiner is listening for.
Grades 3 to 5. Drill the left hand alone on material one grade below, then hands together at the real grade. Scales and arpeggios in every key the grade allows, not for speed but for geography: sight-reading is remembering where the hand lives in E flat before the bar arrives. Add one syncopated rhythm drill per session.
Grades 6 to 8. Drill the ugly keys on purpose. A week each in B major, D flat major, F sharp minor and C sharp minor changes how the top grades feel. Read open score textures slowly. And practise performing badly: play exercises you know are above you and keep the pulse anyway, because grace under failure is a Grade 8 skill.
Making the drilling automatic
You can run all of this from paper if you have a very large pile of graded exercises and the discipline to never repeat one. MidiSlayer's Graded Reading covers the key-geography half of that pile: it deals fresh single notes in the keys the ABRSM 2025-26 table sets for the grade you pick, minor keys with the raised seventh in context, all the way to B and D flat major at Grade 8.
Because the app hears your MIDI keyboard in real time, it marks the run while your eyes stay on the staff, and Tempo mode in Practice keeps score of the thing examiners actually grade: did the pulse survive. The scales, arpeggio and chord modes cover the geography drills, with standard fingering shown where a published standard exists, and honest plain dots where one doesn't, because guessed fingering is worse than none.
Ten minutes a day at the right grade, moving up when you clear 90 percent, is the entire plan. The reading course and note drills in the free version cover the early-grade work; the full version is one payment, yours to keep, and costs less than a single exam entry at the upper grades.