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Does anyone feel like their grades are going backwards?

This is really frustrating me at the moment, so I was wondering if anyone else feels similar.

I'm in year eleven. Last year some of my mocks went well and others were terrible. This year they're going on about how you should be improving by this much ect. But, I feel like mine are going backwards.

Last year the subjects were new and interesting, and now they're just really repetitive and I'm getting bored of them... and not doing as well. I'm also beginning to think that some were marked much higher than they should have been. Plus my new teachers are pants :rolleyes:

Is anyone else feeling like this? Or am I listening to the teachers' exaggerations about the mocks too much?

They’re in about two weeks. :frown:

Reply 1

666baby

I'm in year 11 too and my German grade has gone backwards. Last year I got an A every term and this year apparantly I'm on a B. I really want to get some A*s but at the moment I haven't got any.

I think you should revise for your mocks and hope you get a decent grade in them but if you don't, its not too much of a problem. You've still got 6 months to improve.

Have you got all your coursework up to date and at the level you want to be at? If you haven't then maybe thats bringing your grade down.

I also agree that everything was new and interesting last year but now it's old and boring. All my teachers ave stayed the same except my maths teacher who left and we've got a terrible one who can't explain anything now.

Reply 2

sol89

10

Don't worry, for my GCSE mocks I got:

English - C
Maths - E
Science - DD
History - E
Geography - E
French - B
Religious Studies - C

and I ended up with the grades you can see in my sig which are quite good considering my mocks.
I bet you did better in your mocks than me so I'm sure you'll do better than I did in my GCSEs, and I didn't do terribly, so you will do fantastic! :biggrin:

Reply 3

SiennaGW

Dont worry about it. I failed all my Mocks but did loads better and passed all my real GCSEs. You will do better than you think you are.

Reply 4

XxJaninexX

15

Hey, it may be the other way around. They may be been over marked now. My english teacher used to do it to scar us!

Reply 5

kellywood_5

17

How much enthusiasm you have for your subjects can really affect how positive you are and how well you do, so just try to find at least one thing in each of your subjects that you really enjoy to motivate you. Also remember that once GCSEs are out of the way, you only have to study your favourite subjects and they'll get much more interesting. You could feel like you're doing worse this year because your teachers are bad, so if there are any areas you don't really understand or aren't quite sure about, ask another teacher or just go over them at home. Finally, teachers often mark mocks harsher than the real exams to encourage pupils to revise. Do some revision for your mocks and that should hopefully get your confidence up, but remember that you can improve a lot between mocks and the real exams. I went from 1 A*, 4 As, 2 Bs, 2 Cs and 1 E in my mocks to 1 A*, 6 As and 3 Bs in my real GCSEs.

Reply 6

quintsy

17

I'm starting to feel the exact same way, and like you; my mocks are in two weeks (minus a day). All I can say is try to stay motivated, because otherwise it will become much harder. Make sure all of your coursework is done, you prepare for your lessons as thoroughly as possible by doing all of your homework tasks, and trying to maintain interest in your subjects.

Don't let the fact that your grade(s) has/have dropped slightly demotivate you, because there is still plenty of time. If you achieved it before, then there's no reason why you shouldn't again.

Is there anyone like your form tutor or head of year whom you can talk to about this? I had a word with my form tutor at the beginning of year eleven because I don't think I'm going to get my target grades at all, and he talked to my head of year about it. Granted, my head of year told me I was being stupid ( :p:

) but I'm sure your school probably has the capacity to deal with it better than mine did.

Good luck! :smile:

I hope the mocks go well for you!

Reply 7

carefree_sloth

Mocks are usually harder than the real deal. Like others have said, harder mocks encourage you to work harder as your GCSE nears.

Reply 8

AisAis

OP

13

I had a word with my form tutor at the beginning of year eleven because I don't think I'm going to get my target grades at all, and he talked to my head of year about it. Granted, my head of year told me I was being stupid

Well I saw, on my ICT teacher's computer, who is the one in charge of all our records, that our traget grades are different form our predicted grades. Teachers give a predicted grade that is different, and I saw that for graphics, I was pridicted an A despite being targeted an A*. At my school, anyway.

Hmm, I guess it's the stress of having to match up to the ones I did well in and also the stress of improving my terrible grades. I pretty much came top or bottom in my classes.

:frown:

Reply 9

kellywood_5

17

AisAis

Well I saw, on my ICT teacher's computer, who is the one in charge of all our records, that our traget grades are different form our predicted grades. Teachers give a predicted grade that is different, and I saw that for graphics, I was pridicted an A despite being targeted an A*. At my school, anyway.

Hmm, I guess it's the stress of having to match up to the ones I did well in and also the stress of improving my terrible grades. I pretty much came top or bottom in my classes.

:frown:

It was different for us as well. Our target grades were just decided by a computer at the start of Year 10 based on performance at KS3, but our predicted grades weren't decided (by our teachers) until after our mocks in Year 11. Maybe you should try prioritising? Don't neglect your strong subjects completely, but focus more on your weaker ones. You're unlikely to go down a grade between now and the real GCSEs, so concentrating on trying to go up in subjects that need extra work should get you better results overall.

Reply 10

Xtrm2Matt

carefree_sloth

Mocks are usually harder than the real deal. Like others have said, harder mocks encourage you to work harder as your GCSE nears.

They actually put me off wanting to word harder for the real exams. If I revised really hard for the mock and got an E (or something), I wouldn't be happy.

Reply 11

littlebee2

My predicted grades actually got better lol!!!
But i don't think i would get them as they are predicted too highly. I think i will see where i am at when i get my mocks in 2 weeks hopefully!

Reply 12

kitty_koo

12

Im not in yr 11 (im in yr 13) but i definately feel as though some of my grades are going backwards and getting steadily worse even though i seem to be working harder :frown:

Reply 13

hannah_dru

2

One of them I feel like it might, because my teacher is so naff.
Hopefully, not cos it's A Level year.

Reply 14

Couldxbe

16

My mocks were scarily similar to my real grades; infact, they hardly changed at all.

In my mocks I got: 5A*s (Biology, Chemistry, Geography, History and R.E) and 5As (English, Lit, French, Maths and Physics). In my real GCSEs I got 6A*s (Chem, Lit, Lang, Geo, Hist and R.E) and 4As (Bio, French, Maths and Physics)

There are a few reasons for this. 1) 3 of my A*s in the mocks (Bio, Hist and Geo) were RIGHT on the boundary - the mark I needed to achieve an A* was the one I got. This perhaps explains why I slipped down to an A in Biology. Also, my teachers marked accurately, and so the grades were reflective of ability rather than marking.

To be perfectly frank, I got by on both sets of exams on last minute revision, and in all honesty I wanted A*s in both Bio and Maths because of the effort I put in throughout both years. I was let down by lack of preparation and generally laziness when it came to revision.

I seemed to have gone backwards last year after the mocks. My Chem teacher left and was replaced by a crackpot, and I started getting Cs and Ds on practise papers set by our other teacher. I lost my Geography follder and had to re-do my coursework etc etc.

Basically, my example isn't very good lol, because I did come out with good grades at the end. What you need to do is concentrate on your coursework if it's not handed in, and if you're feeling as though you're going to slip then start revising EARLY. Don't do what I did and leave it until the night before, because it's hell and leaves you feeling incredibly nervous throughout the summer. I had to pull an all nighter with energy drinks for Physics and I seriously do not recommend it, because I was dead by the end of that 2 hour 15 minute exam.

Reply 15

i love biology

I did my mocks last week and i'm getting some results back. I'm aiming for 3A* 6A 1B. However my mock results so far are a different story:
Maths - B
Physics - C
Biology - C
Chemistry - B
R.S - B
i.t - A
Im really worried about the actual grades and i only used to read my notes for my mocks so these results have made me realise that i need to concentrate and revise a lot more!

Reply 16

NickiM

14

Well, don't forget that with mock GCSEs, they're pointers to how you can improve. In addition, you haven't covered all the material, are generally taken less seriously, and are your first "mocks" to major exams.

If you learn from your mistakes in the mocks, concentrate hard and revise well when it comes to next year, your actual grades will probably be a bit higher than your mocks. I think it was said at our school you should go up by at least a grade.

I think I got something like 5 A*, 4 A and a B in my mocks and went on to get 9 A* and an A at GCSE.

Good luck to you all :smile:

Reply 17

kellywood_5

17

i love biology

I did my mocks last week and i'm getting some results back. I'm aiming for 3A* 6A 1B. However my mock results so far are a different story:
Maths - B
Physics - C
Biology - C
Chemistry - B
R.S - B
i.t - A
Im really worried about the actual grades and i only used to read my notes for my mocks so these results have made me realise that i need to concentrate and revise a lot more!

And that's the great thing about mocks. The results don't really matter, but you can learn from them by identifying your weaknesses, getting extra help if necessary and revising more for the real exams. Once you've finished all the content and done lots of exam practice, which you will in the months before the GCSEs, it's perfectly possible to improve by at least a grade. Remember as well that coursework counts towards the real grades, so if you do better in coursework, that will pull you up. I got an E in my media studies mock because it was just the exam, but it was 50% coursework and I did quite well in that, and hopefully improved a bit in the months in between the mocks and the real exams, so I ended up with a B.

Does anyone feel like their grades are going backwards?

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