Learn how to read and answer theory test questions so you can pass your university entrance or placement theory exam.
This guide was developed from a standard sample of a North American University entrance exam. The questions in the guide are in black ink, and the answers are in orange. For each question, I describe the step- by- step process you can use to organize your thoughts and make sure you do not miss anything.
The best way to prepare for an exam is to practice. Keep in mind that this is not a theory book that will teach you how to do everything, it is a guide to specific questions found in exams. If you need theory lessons, practice material or if you have any questions, email me at tetyanahar@gmail.com
Things to keep in mind:
1. It is really important to carefully read each question and understand what it is asking you to do. Be very careful here because there might be multiple parts to the question. Be very clear with how you answer the question, providing only the information they are asking for, in a neat and easy to understand manner. Use the specific labeling/notation they are asking for, and do not automatically write how you would intuitively write the answer. It is a game, it is a puzzle, and sometimes they try to trick you a bit, so be super aware.
2. If there is scrap paper, USE IT. If you do not see scrap paper, ask for it. If they cannot provide scrap paper, you should find a blank area on the test and use it, lightly writing your thought process or whatever you are figuring out. Remember to keep this tidy and light so you can easily erase everything at the end.
3. If you do have scrap paper, it might be helpful for you to write out all of the key signatures and the major scales, either as letters, or on a staff, depending on the luxury of your scrap. This will allow you to have a quick reference, and save you time figuring out keys in each question. But if you are quick with your key signatures, you might find that this only takes up time, so decide what is best for you.
4. It is really important to always be aware of the clef you are working in. You might have the absolute correct answer, but if you did not realize that you wrote your answer in Treble Clef while the question was actually in Bass Clef, it is completely wrong!
5. Check the examples, to see how they want you to answer the question if it is not clear in the instructions.
6. If there is someone in the room and you are confused about something, ASK! Do not be shy, your mark could depend on if you ask that clarifying question!
7. If you are struggling with a question for too long, skip it, but DO NOT FORGET to come back to it!
8. At the end, make sure you check over your answers, reading the questions again and making sure you have provided all of the answers.
How to answer this section:
1. After reading the question we understand that: We need to write a scale, we need to use accidentals NOT A KEY SIGNATURE, and it has to be an octave (8 notes) including the tonic at the top like in the example. Also, it should be an ascending scale!!
2. The example does not use stems for the notes, and uses coloured-in note heads, so we will do exactly that.
3. NOTICE that not all of the scales are in treble clef!! This is a big one, because it is easy to miss, and you will loose many points.
4. Now, before we start writing, it says not to provide a key signature. But for me, it is a lot easier to see the key signature before I start writing the scale so that I do not miss any accidentals. So, what we do is write a key signature on our scrap paper. Then we decide where to write our tonic note, keeping in mind that we need to comfortably fit the whole scale in the staff, with no/least amount of ledger lines. Then we go for it, start writing the scale, checking our key signature on the scrap paper and making sure we have all of the notes and accidentals.
How to answer this section:
1. This question gives us a note, and tells us which scale degree (which number in the scale) it is, if the scale that it is from is major or minor (NOT WHETHER THE INTERVAL IS MAJOR OR MINOR). If you confuse these two things you have misunderstood the question (yes, it is super confusing, especially the last question, in which Minor is written right next to 2, which visually looks like they mean the interval Minor 2nd). So be super careful with that.
2. We have to figure out what scale the given note is from. Our only options for scales are: Major or natural minor, ascending scales.
3. So we take the given note and figure out which note BELOW the given note would create this interval. Below because it is a scale degree, so to find the root we have to go back! (it is like if you closed your ears while someone was playing a scale and then opened them at a random time and they said: I was playing an ascending major scale and this is the 4th, what scale was I playing?)
4. You can also figure out the root by writing descending notes on scrap paper until you find the root, and then consider if that root needs an accidental to agree with a major or minor scale.
5. Once you figure out the root, think about the key signature of that scale. If it is a natural minor scale, it might be easier to first find the relative major and figure out the key signature that way. Remember that you can not change the given note by adding accidentals, so be careful to make sure you find the actual root.
6. Do not write the key signature on the staff, but write the key using a letter like in the example.
7. Then, follow the example to make your written out scale look the same, using accidentals where needed.
How to answer this section:
1. You will have to have a good knowledge of keys here.
2. A trick to quickly find the relative minor is to move 3 half steps below the major root.
3. To find the relative major from the minor, you go up 3 half steps.
4. For the writing section, make sure you pay attention to which CLEF each question is in, that is how they get you!
How to answer this section:
1. In this question the most important part is to remember that the only scale options are major and natural minor. Why? because you need to be familiar with the qualities (major/minor) of scale degrees in these specific scales.
2. Again, before you start, notice that the CLEFS change from question to question!
3. They provide you with the scale degree, and tell you if the SCALE is major or minor, not the interval! Pay attention to this.
4. So, you think: ok this scale is minor and this note is scale degree 7. In a natural minor scale, the 7 is a whole step, not a half step from the root. Then you figure out the root by going up to the root in this case. In other cases you will use the interval to go up or down to the root.
5. Then you figure out what the key and key signature are. For minor, it is easier for me to find the key signature by figuring out the relative major. So once you find the root, you can go up 3 half steps to find the relative major, and come up with the key signature that way. But do not get confused about which scale you are actually working with, and make sure you write the correct key (as a letter) to answer the question.
6. You do not have to write the scale in the staff.
How to answer this section:
1. You have to identify groupings of notes. Are the notes in groups of 3? Groups of 2? Or multiples of these numbers?
2. Identify how many notes are present in each bar, and then decide what time signature makes sense, based on the groups and most present note value, do not overthink, keep it simple. For example if the groups (2 and 3) make 7 when added up in the bar, and this division is mostly presented in 8th notes, then its 7/8.
3. For example:
a. in 4/4 things are grouped in 2 or multiples of 2.
b. In 3/4 or 3/8 things are grouped in 3 or 2, like dotted quarter notes, or like 6 eighth notes grouped in 2s in 3/4. 6/4 and 6/8 are similar.
c. In 5/4 or 5/8 things are grouped in 3 and 2 or 2 and 3
d. In 7/4 or 7/8 things are grouped in 3 and 4, 4 and 3, 2 and 2 and 3, or 3 and 2 and 2.
e. In 9/8 things are grouped in 3 usually.
f. In 12/8 things are grouped in 3 or 6.
How to answer this section:
1. The guidelines from the previous section apply here.
2. Grouping in 4/4 time is Strong, Weak, Strong, Weak (each beat) so your grouping should reflect this, the beginning of a group should always start on a strong beat, use ties if necessary (for syncopation for example). In 3/4 time it is Strong, Weak, Weak (like waltz) and in 6/4 or 6/8 it is Strong, Weak, Weak, Strong, Weak, Weak. In 5 and 7, you use the same rules, but mixed together, in the patterns we talked about previously.
How to answer this section:
1. Rests have the same grouping rules as notes, so just think how you would group the notes, and that is how you will group the rests.
2. Be careful with the bottom number of the time signature! Make sure you have filled in the rests according to the time signature!
How to answer this section:
1. Here you need to remember to always count the starting note when writing intervals. And remember the specific notation they use here. M- Major, m- minor, d-diminished, A- Augmented. The capitalization really matters here and you could lose marks.
2. The easiest way to do this is to relate each note to the root of a major scale, and figure out the intervals that way. You can even write out all of the major scales on your scrap paper.
3. Remember that you have to write the interval ABOVE the given note.
4. When doing the inversions, make sure you realize that the bottom staff is the same as you were working in previously!! Even though it is braced together, it is not like a regular piano staff with treble and bass clef.
5. I would name the inversions before I write them, because there is a simple trick. The two numbers of the interval and inversion, will always add up to 9 (in simple intervals). Check the above examples and see for yourself. The quality of the interval will be opposite, so Major would become minor (and the other way around), Augmented to diminished (and the other way around), perfect always stays perfect.
6. So, if I have the interval of a Major 3rd, I know that the inversion will be minor, and if 9-3=6 then it will be a minor 6th.
7. Then I can just rewrite the intervals, to make the inversions. I just take the top note of each interval and rewrite it an octave lower (one of the notes should remain in exactly the same place it was before).
8. To check that I have done it correctly, I can then go through all of the inversions I have written and make sure that the interval is the same as the one I wrote earlier.
For more information on intervals, read this: https://tetyanaharaschuk.wixsite.com/tetyana/post/what-are-intervals-part-2-naming-intervals
How to answer this section:
1. This one is a bit tough because the interval is written across two different clefs, so be careful with this and make sure you are aware what octave each note actually is in, and how close the notes actually are. You can rewrite the intervals in the same staff, to make it easier to figure out the distance.
2. I would again relate these intervals to the major scale and figure them out that way.
3. For intervals larger than an octave, remember that you can simplify them by subtracting 7 (which puts the intervals in the same octave). So, if you have a Major 10th , it actually is just a Major 3rd (10-7=3)
4. Remember the labelling rules they want you to use and do not forget the uppercase/lowercase letters.
How to answer this section:
1. Very important to remember what CLEF you are working with. There are a lot of questions, so you might automatically revert to your most comfortable clef and write many wrong answers.
2. The hardest part here is focusing on the two notes you are actually working with, and remember that we always figure out intervals starting from the lowest note, not the note that comes first in a melodic passage like this one. You can lightly circle the pairs of notes that you have to focus on, to not skip any.
3. Pay attention to the Augmented unisons here! (A1) even though it is a half step, do not call it a minor second, because it is actually still a unison (because it uses the same letter name for both) but just altered. And again, in this case you will still count the distance from the lowest note, so if you have C and Cb, Cb is lower and you are going up to C, so it is an Augmented unison.
4. Be careful with enharmonic intervals in general, name them what they are, do not try to simplify Bb to C# for example to something more familiar like Bb to Db. Bb to C# is an Augmented second and Bb to Db is a minor third.
How to answer this section:
1. First look at the entire melody, noticing its shape. Figure out the interval relationship (distance) between the original key and the key you are transposing to, and visualize the shift of the melody roughly, into the new key, staying in treble clef for now. So, for this example, going down a minor 3rd to A is easier for me to visualize than going up a minor 6th.
2. Next, circle the notes that have accidentals, so that you can double check these later.
3. The best strategy is to transpose the melody by scale degrees. The first two notes in this example are the 5th and root of C Major, and you can transpose by finding the 5th and root of A major! Go through the entire passage, transposing each note and writing it into the same staff, or on scrap paper. Do this first in the same staff, Treble clef in this case.
4. Then double check the accidentals that you circled earlier, by relating them once again to the scale degrees, for example: the first accidental in the example is C# which is an Augmented unison in the key of C (again be careful with these augmented unisons, so that you do not transpose it to a minor second) So your transposed note would be A#- an augmented unison, not Bb (which is the more familiar, enharmonic equivalent) in the new key of A major.
5. Then after you have done and checked the transposition in the treble clef, pick the best octave for the starting note in the bass clef, so that you can fit the melody with the least amount of ledger lines.
6. Try to line up the melody vertically with the original so that it is easier to check it later.
7. When you finish writing the melody in bass clef, double check the accidentals, ties, rests and any dynamics or anything else in the original that should be written in the transposed melody.
How to answer this section:
1. First double check which clef you are in.
2. It says to write triads in root position, that is when the notes are equally spaced on the staff and look like a snowman.
3. Remember that for minor and major triads, the fifth is perfect, so first write the fifth.
4. To finish a major triad, add a major 3rd. To finish a minor triad, add a minor 3rd (which is half step lower than a major 3rd.
5. For diminished triads, first create a minor triad and then lower the fifth by a half step. (Make sure you lower the fifth rather than raise the 4th, because you will lose the snowman look, and it will not be correct.)
6. For augmented triads, start with a major triad and raise the fifth by a half step, again make sure you do not write the top note as a lowered 6th instead of a raised 5th, because then we lose the snowman look and it is not correct.
7. The quick hack to writing triads is to build a snowman on top of the first note. So, if the first note is on a line, add two more notes on the above two lines, if the first note is on a space add two notes on the above two spaces, to make it look like an evenly spaced snowman. Then, you check that the notes are correct by relating them to the major scale, and raising/lowering the third or the third and fifth.
For more information on chords, read this: https://tetyanaharaschuk.wixsite.com/tetyana/post/what-are-chords-another-reason-to-practice-scales
How to answer this section:
1. First, check which clef you are in.
2. Then check if the 5th is a perfect 5th, if it is the chord is either major or minor. Then check if the 3rd is major or minor, and that will determine the chord.
3. If the fifth is lowered, you know that it is diminished (check to make sure it also has a minor 3rd), and if the fifth is raised, you know that it is augmented (check to make sure it has a major 3rd).
4. Remember to label the triads properly, pay attention to lowercase/uppercase letters!
How to answer this section:
1. This section gives you a progression of 4 chords in a key.
2. Check which clef you are in, and do not worry about the naturals in the key signature, they have to be there because there are no double bar lines, but to figure out the key, just pay attention to the sharps or flats.
3. First figure out the key. So in the first example, the key signature tells us it is G Major, but when we look at the chord marked as I, it is actually an E minor chord, which means the key is E minor, the relative minor of G Major.
4. Then we can label the number for each chord just by looking at the root and thinking: What scale degree is this in relation to the key we are in? Notice that in this example they use all capital roman numerals, regardless of minor or major chord.
5. After you label all of the chord numbers in a key, you can either check each chord with the criteria we talked about in the previous section, or you can label them based on the rules of qualities of chords (ex. 2 chord is always minor in a major key).
6. Again, be careful here with the uppercase/lowercase letters.
Here is a link to the entire University of Manitoba- Desautel Faculty of Music Entrance Test: https://umanitoba.ca/music/sites/music/files/2020-09/theory_entrance_test_-_practice.pdf
If you have questions, need theory lessons, or practice material, email me at tetyanahar@gmail.com
Good Luck!
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