The scores are at the very top of the page that appears after you finish the tests and answer the questions "could you hear the tunes" and "were you paying attention".

....people who are closely related are likely to have lived for a long time in the same household and be exposed to much of the same musical influences. If, say, a parent plays and listens to a lot of music, the children will be exposed to that

Marje, I agree that coming from a 'musical' family' seems to play a large part in how music might 'run in families'. But it's not the only factor! Two of my sons completed the tests yesterday -- the first got 23 and 24/30 (but I noticed he clicked "no!" to the question "were you paying attention"    little ****** aarrgghhh!), the second 26 and 27.

All three of my kids studied piano with me for a couple years. Two studied music (brass) in high school, and two play guitar by ear. But none of them studied ear training, and none sing or play instruments regularly these days either.

It will be interesting to see how the 3rd one does -- the one who scored 23 and 24 (without paying attention    arrrrrrggghhh!) is his identical twin.

Yes, some music students need a lot more time, patience, encouragement and personal motivation to prepare for aural tests than others, but it certainly can be done.

In my first years of teaching, I had an adult student who came in telling me she was 'tone-deaf'. And indeed, she could not sing in tune, or match a pitch correctly. But as a newbie teacher, I did not have the wisdom or experience yet to just write her off as a 'hopeless case'    ;-)

So we worked first on "higher or lower" (have student turn around, play two tones, ask which one is higher), then on matching pitches (singing), then on playing back simple little 3-note tunes by ear. THis process took many months, but she was determined to succeed and eventually DID learn to hear the differences, sing in tune and play back the melodies accurately!   By the time she finished her lessons with me, she'd completed her Grade 8 piano INCLUDING all those (relatively) complicated ear tests! She wowed herself, she wowed me, and it's students like these that are behind the attitudes I expressed above.

I wonder if there's a 'hidden factor' in those tests to measure personal musical motivation and determination. If not, why not?

;-)