Mock exams – How your students can get the most from them
Mock exams are a standard part of every school’s GCSE preparations – but the closer you can get to simulating the real thing, the better…
- by Ama Dickson
In the same way that actors will carefully prepare and rehearse for that big moment when the curtain goes up, sensibly scheduled and rigorous mock exams afford students important opportunities for practising and perfecting the skills we require of them in the exam hall.
This will hopefully help them avoid any unpleasant surprises on the day.
Exam hall stress
Needless to say, exams can be an incredibly stressful time. It’s not easy to go from sitting in a class of around 30 of your peers, to sitting in a large exam hall with up to 150 students, or even more.
Once the exam itself is underway, the invigilators will typically pace up and down the silent exam room, occasionally stopping for breaks. They’ll be trying to move as quietly as possible, so as not to disturb the other exam entrants, but their presence can’t help but feel unfamiliar, strange and perhaps even intimidating.
Past papers aside, might it therefore be worth holding one or more full mock exams in the final run-up to the big day(s)?
The environment of an exam hall can easily provoke stress responses, given how large and overwhelming they can be.
Maintaining focus in such large environments can be difficult enough as it is, and the high stakes involved don’t exactly help.
Rehearsing the time that students will be spending in such environments can help them become more familiar with how things will be on the day, which could be of huge benefit.
When it matters most, virtually all students will want any external factors that could affect their performance to be accounted for and controlled.
Most will agree, however, that it’s the amount of study and revision they’ve done that will likely do most to determine how well they perform, beyond anything else.
Time management during mock exams
Full mock exams can be valuable for the insights they provide students with regards to their timekeeping.
An individual’s grasp of time management (or lack thereof) can, and will directly affect their overall grades and outcomes.
They might not have been able to attempt all the questions, or cover all the points in their written response that they otherwise would have done, simply due to running out of time.
As teachers we will, of course, thoroughly walk students through a number of past exam papers beforehand. We’ll usually provide exemplar responses during revision lessons. However, we can sometimes overlook advice specifically relating to the skills of timing that students will have to pull off.
Through rigorous practice and rehearsal, students can learn how to better manage their time ‘in situ’, and thus become more informed as to precisely how much time they’ll need to allocate to each section of the paper.
We can certainly offer some helpful input, but every exam is ultimately a solitary and individual experience. Timing strategies that work well for one student might not be ideally suited to the next.
Structure and format
When carried out in tandem with regular completion of past papers, mock exams can get students fully accustomed to the structure and format of GCSE exams.
Completing past papers will help students learn how exam boards typically word questions, the types of instruction they give and how they lay out exam papers. However, it’s in the ‘doing’ that students will become properly aware of their own exam techniques, and how they can refine these to improve their performance.
What’s the best way of approaching multiple-choice questions? How should they plan and structure their essay response? Should they use diagrams or graphs in their answers, and if so, how?
It’s also important to remember that presentation matters. Repeated practice will help students improve the quality of their handwriting under timed conditions, and hopefully ensure that they can write quickly, yet legibly.
Close simulation
Mock exams provide students with opportunities to assess what they do, and more importantly don’t know.
The close simulation of exam conditions can expose hitherto unnoticed strengths and weaknesses, help to highlight any areas needing rapid improvement and give students a reliable way of targeting knowledge gaps.
From a teacher’s point of view, mock exams can shed useful light on areas of need within different classes, streamline the process of choosing what to cover in revision lessons, and flag up those parts of the paper where students are gaining and losing the most marks.
Actors use rehearsals to ensure that a theatrical production proceeds seamlessly, by identifying the potential for errors and reducing the likelihood of them occurring on the night.
Just the very act of rehearsing itself can help to reduce performers’ anxiety, and open up the possibility of making adjustments in response to constructive feedback.
Mock exams may already occupy a spot on virtually every school’s academic calendar. However, we should explore further the extent to which mock GCSEs emulate the real thing.
What this is ultimately all about is ensuring that students are both mentally and physically prepared to perform at their very best during their final exams.
Benefits of mock exams for students with SEND
Extended time
Some students may require extended time for SEND- or SEMH-related reasons. Mock exams can help to identify students who might be eligible for such support, and then give them a chance to practice managing the increased amount of time they’ll have.
Supervised breaks
Mock exams can help to show students how to best utilise any breaks they might be entitled to. This could be stretching, using the bathroom or simply closing their eyes.
Mock exams allow for the trialling of different ideas to see what works.
Exam aids
Certain students may be entitled to use enlarged exam papers, magnifiers, coloured overlays and prompters during exams. Mock exams can show students how and when to use such aids in the most efficient and effective way possible.
Supportive devices
Students can practise using a typing accessory, dictionary or other communication aid as part of mock exams to build confidence in its use before the final event of an exam.
Ama Dickson is a maths teacher and contributor to Collins’ series of maths revision guides; she also regularly posts maths instruction videos to TikTok as @mathscrunch.
