ABRSM piano sight-reading
Grade 2 sight-reading: the hands meet
Four to six bars, hands together for the first time, in C, G, F or D major, or A, D, E or G minor, in 4/4, 3/4 or 2/4. Semibreves, ties and the dotted crotchet-quaver arrive. Half a minute to look, then play. Same 21 marks as every grade.
Checked against the ABRSM 2025-26 syllabus · last reviewed 3 September 2026 · 6 min read
Grade 2 sight-reading parameters
Checked by us against the 2025-26 syllabus
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What changed
Since Grade 1
One word in the Grade 2 row of the table does all the damage: "together" (page 16). Initial Grade and Grade 1 test each hand separately. Grade 2 is the first time the examiner puts a two-stave piece in front of you and expects both staves to happen at once, at sight, with the clock running.
Everything else is modest. Three new keys: D major (two sharps, the first time you have to remember two), E minor (one sharp, with a D♯ allowed under Grade 1's "occasional accidentals" rule) and G minor (two flats, F♯ likewise). The length stays where Initial Grade set it, four bars in 4/4 or six in 2/4, and no new time signature arrives; 3/4 came in at Grade 1. New note values: the semibreve, which is easy, and the dotted crotchet followed by a quaver, which is not, because it is the first rhythm where a short note lands off the beat after a long one. Ties are new. So is pp, a dynamic that children play as "nearly nothing" and examiners hear as "did they mean that?".
The hand position is still five fingers. The table does not release the hand until Grade 3. So Grade 2 hands-together is two five-finger hands, each parked, each staying put. That is the mercy of this grade: neither hand moves, so the whole problem is reading two lines at the same time and keeping the beat while you do.
Why that is hard: reading is serial and the piano is not. At Grade 1 your eyes followed one line. Now they have to take in a vertical slice, a note in the treble and a note in the bass, then the next slice, and the pulse has to keep going whether the slice arrived in time or not. In our experience, most Grade 2 candidates who lose marks lose them by stopping when the hands disagree. The marking criteria on page 60 put continuity, fluency or a steady pulse in every band, so that stop costs more than any note.
Everything from Grade 1 still applies. New at Grade 2:
- Length
- unchanged
- Time signatures
- no change3 carried over
- Keys
- new: D major
- new: E minor
- new: G minor
- Hands
- Any five-finger positionnowHands together
- Other features
- new: semibreves (whole-bar notes)
- new: the dotted-crotchet-quaver pattern
- new: ties
- new: dynamic pp
The drill plan
A week that fits a life
The plan for Grade 2 is a hands-together plan. Nothing else moves the mark as much.
Read vertically, not horizontally. In the half minute, find the first note of the right hand and the first note of the left hand and put both hands on them before you play anything. That is the biggest single habit at this grade: two hands parked before beat one.
Monday, Wednesday, Friday, ten minutes. Hands together on material a grade or two easier than you are sitting. Initial Grade material is right. If it feels like reading a picture book out loud, the dose is correct. Play through once, no stopping, then move on. Never a second go. The what to drill post explains why the pile of easy pieces beats the thin book of hard ones.
Tuesday and Thursday, five minutes each. Rhythm only, no piano. Tap a dotted crotchet plus quaver pattern with the right hand while the left hand taps crotchets. Say "one, two-and" out loud if you like; the specification is silent on counting aloud in the exam, so treat it as a practice tool rather than a plan. Then tie work: write out a two-bar rhythm with a tie across the barline and clap it. The tied note is not a rest and it is not a repeat. It is a longer note.
Key signature flash, every day, one minute. Deal yourself a few notes below in D major, E minor and G minor. The dealer keeps the notes inside a five-finger hand at this grade because that is what the table says. When G minor comes up, say "two flats, and an F♯ may turn up" before the first note appears.
Weekend. One short unseen line, hands together, played once. Then one Grade 1 line, hands separately, as a cool-down. Stop even if the first one went badly. Especially then.
What to ignore at Grade 2. Chords: none until Grade 3. Semiquavers: Grade 3. Anything outside the five-finger position: Grade 3. Pedal: Grade 6, whatever the internet says. Tempo marks: the table prints none, so do not practise reading them. Spend the time on the two staves.
Deal me a note
What a Grade 2 test can ask of your eyes
The staff below deals notes inside this grade's keys, key signature shown. Press the letter, or click it.
This checks the letter. MidiSlayer checks the note you actually played, in time.
Traps
Where Grade 2 candidates lose marks
- Stopping when the hands disagree. The right hand was fine, the left hand was a third out, you stopped to fix it. That single stop drops you below the "continuity generally maintained" line on page 60. Wrong bass note, keep going.
- Reading the tie as two notes. A tied crotchet across the barline is one held note. Re-striking it is a wrong rhythm, not a wrong note, and rhythm or pulse is in the first line of every band on the criteria.
- Rushing the dotted crotchet. The dotted crotchet-quaver pattern is new here. Candidates play it as two even notes. Tap it before you play it, in the half minute.
- Forgetting the second sharp. D major is the first two-sharp key. The F♯ is remembered; the C♯ is the one that goes. Say both before you start.
- Playing pp as nothing. It is new at this grade and it is meant to be heard. A confident pp beats a nervous one.
The honest bit
What MidiSlayer does for Grade 2, and what it does not
At Grade 2, MidiSlayer's Graded Reading deals single notes in C, G, F and D majors and A, D, E and G minors, across the grade's range, key signature on the staff, and brings back missed notes more often within a session. The five-finger hand is the rule for the dealer on this page, not the app. It is not an exam simulator: it will not put two staves in front of you. Hands-together reading lives in Practice with real pieces, where Wait mode holds the beat until both hands arrive. Graded Reading is part of the full app, one payment, yours to keep. The free version includes Note Flashcards, the Learn course and the daily game. Download it free.
Free to start. One payment for everything, yours to keep.
Questions
Asked about Grade 2
Any key introduced by Grade 2: C, G, F and D majors, A, D, E and G minors (page 16). The parameters are cumulative, so the Grade 1 and Initial Grade keys stay in. New at Grade 2 are D major, E minor and G minor.
Grade 2. The table's hand-position cell for Grade 2 reads "playing together". Initial Grade and Grade 1 are hands separately. From Grade 3 the hand may also move outside the five-finger position.
The table sets the length at Initial Grade, 4 bars in 4/4 or 6 bars in 2/4, and leaves the Grade 1 and Grade 2 cells blank, meaning inherited. Expect four to six bars.
Yes. ABRSM states the parameters "are presented cumulatively, i.e. once introduced they apply for all later grades". A Grade 2 test in F major is entirely legal.
No. Two-note chords in either hand arrive at Grade 3. Grade 2 hands together means one note per hand at a time.
Ten minutes, most days, hands together on Initial Grade material, plus a minute of key-signature flash. Start months out; the dose never needs to grow. Cramming does not work because the skill is filed between sessions, not during them.
Hands together; D major, E minor and G minor; semibreves; dotted crotchet-quaver patterns; tied notes; pp. The diff on this page marks each one.
MidiSlayer is independent of ABRSM and not endorsed by it. ABRSM is a trade mark of The Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, used here to identify the exams these pages describe. Exam facts are taken from the ABRSM Piano Syllabus 2025 & 2026 (© ABRSM), quoted briefly with acknowledgement and otherwise stated in our own words.