I use the AMEB (Australian Music Examinations Board) for practical and theory exams.

For piano, there’s a few exam options, and I normally deal with two: the Comprehensive, or Piano for Leisure (PFL).

In basic terms, the difference is the amount of material needing to be learned: for PFL you need to prepare three pieces, for the Comprehensive grades you have to usually do five, and there are considerably more scales for Comprehensive grades. The pieces in PFL also have more of a variety of modern and Jazzy pieces, whereas Comprehensive is all of the “classical” periods – Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and then modern.