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Elton Joel RW2 2'25
With apologies to them both. A rock piano solo without lyrics.
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Elegy RW2 2'25
Many, many parts to weave and balance - needs ensemble skills, even though it's for solo piano.
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The Art of the Interview back to magazine homepage
Introduction | Testing Creativity | Verbal Instructions | Swapping chairs
The Practice Snapshot | Concert in 10 minutes | Turnaround Time
Querying on Turnaround Times
Turnaround Time is the length of time it takes a student to get a piece from "never seen it before" to "ready to play for my teacher"...and then ultimately "ready to perform". 
Obviously short turnaround times makes your life much easier, and keeps lessons and repertoire ticking along at a healthy pace (for hints on slashing turnaround times, see the "Turnaround Time" entry on pages 352-359 of Practiceopedia)
That transfer student in front of you might seem thoroughly charming, but you're going to be less easily charmed if they take a semester to learn each two page piece. So it's time to do a little fishing, to get a sense of just what their turnaround time expectations and skills are...just so you know you're not in for years of glacial progress.
Invite a prediction
Ideally, the student will have with them a book of music they've been working on. Choose a piece in there that's representative of the standard of the pieces they have been playing recently, but one that they haven't seen before.
At this point, you're not going to ask them to play it—instead, they have to answer a question:
"If I were to give this to you today, how long would it be before I could hear it from beginning to end?"
You haven't said anything at this point about "fluently" "no mistakes" "from memory" or "up to tempo", but their request for clarification on these parameters (or the lack of such a request) will speak volumes.
Once they've told you their estimated Turnaround Time ask them why they chose that answer. So if they had told you 5 weeks, then ask what each of the weeks would be for. What sort of shape would they expect it would be in after 2 weeks?
You'll hear a guided tour of how they normally do things. Even if it seems overly slow to you though, it's not game over—the real point of interest here is how they respond to the idea that they might consider working differently.
Throwing down a challenge
Having heard their estimation, now it's time to see how they might respond to a shift in what they're used to. If they told you 5 weeks, ask how they could achieve the same result in 2 weeks. What would they need to do differently? How much help would they need? Where would that help come from?
If they seem reluctant, or are overly quick to declare it "impossible", have them imagine that the deadline exists because they have to perform the piece on national television in 14 days...to win $100,000. With that sort of motivation, most students would find a way, and you'll learn a lot from the strategies they suggest—and even more from the things they don't say. (See also the Marathon Week entry in Practiceopedia for more tactics for getting jobs done in impossibly short time frames).
However, some students will just continue to protest that it will take them 5 weeks no matter what...in which case a saying about old dogs and new tricks comes to mind, and you might be better off without this particular puppy.