To identify who wrote a piece, it would be good to identify the era first. In order. Medieval, renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, Neo-romantic/contemporary. I doubt that t would give you a medieval or renaissance piece for a level 6 exam, but I’m not familiar with the UK system. Each of these eras has very specific characteristics and pieces. For example, rich nocturnes are very prevalent in the Romantic period (think Chopin or late Beethoven), and contrapuntal fugues are very common in the Baroque period. I won’t go into detail because it is easy to research, but I think you get what I mean. Then, you would want to find out the big composers of each genre. Bach and Handel would be the big guys for the Baroque period, and Mozart was practically the king of the classical period. Then you have Beethoven, who was half in the classical period and half in the Romantic period. Again, this research is something you can do easily. The last step would be to make a list of each of the composer’s most well known pieces. For Beethoven, you could list Rondo Alla Turca, his fifth symphony, and Moonlight Sonata. You will probably be familiar with a lot of them already, especially the ones from the classical and Romantic periods. Good luck on your exams!
A conductor must be an advocate of the song- the song as written or not. I've always liked music that has been recorded. I like playing solo (for an orchestra or chamber ensemble) if there's still a piece of music to play.