doing past papers vs spoiling the mocks

In the real thing? But dont they try to make it so that you have to think a lot during them?

Really depends on the subject. With maths for instance there are recurring questions which you may be able to breeze through with little thought, whereas essay subjects can throw a curveball in terms of questions, and give you something completely unexpected.

But is it worth doing past papers even if it is 'cheating'(if the same paper is used for the mocks)?

I'm sure doing past papers will be fine. Just don't do June 2017 paper because they might be used in the mocks.

If someone was to work hard but wanted let's say 95% and a predicted 9, is he doing any harm in using the 2017 potential mock papers?

Mock papers are there to show where your weaknesses are. Doing them would mean you are not getting a fair representation of your weaknesses because you perform under stress in an exam which can't be replicated at home.

I wouldn't mind doing that for biology. We're doing Eduqas 9-1 and it's about the most messed up exam board you can get. What is hard about Eduqas? Well, the questions are vague and the answers are overall specific. It doesn't matter if u said the same thing, it has to be on the mark scheme and there is no 'allow' section either. It's like a stubborn,spoilt 7 year old. Unless this exam board is acknowledged as the hardest and u get an insane amount of UMS per mark, I'm doomed to fail my biology GCSE although it was one of my strongest subjects. With this exam board I get like 50% and my best is 70. With AQA, it's 70 to 90(our teacher used AQA papers occasionally in year 10).
There's no way I can do exam practice because it is very different even to what it used to be itself(you'll find that Eduqas/WJEC past papers are far easier than the 9-1 specimens). There just isn't a paper with a similar level of difficulty. That also makes their Question bank useless. So what's next since you can't use past papers? Revision guide? Textbooks? There are none. Yes, I just literally said that. The closest thing we can get to Eduqas is WJEC because Eduqas is the english-adapted version. WJEC was notorious for being an evil exam board but Eduqas is brutal and barbaric. The specifiation is the only thing we can use and the lack of material is pathetic. What kind of exam board doesn't even have the proper resources for it other than ones designed by delusional idiots?
For the other subjects, now that you've mentioned it, it is worthwhile to not spoil the mock but how can the same thing be said about biology? I dont want 50% on my mock report. My parents will be very angry with me. Eduqas is not a fair representation of one's ability or weaknesses. It has weaknesses itself and that's not something I can amend. I'd rather have a decent mark and work out a strategy after the mocks when they release more specimen papers or information or something. I hope you an appreciate the situation. Most people seem to be doing AQA so I presume you do AQA as well.
Feel more than free to disagree with any of the points I have made
but I dont feel as if there's any other way. Obviously I could be wrong. I'm sorry if this sounded negative but I couldn't put it any other way. Still, I do greatly appreciate your help!

I feel your pain. I'm doing Eduqas for RS and thankfully AQA for pretty much everything else as well as Edexcel for a couple of subjects.
I'm targeted a 9 and not one person in my entire year has ever achieved a 9 on any RS exam ever with Eduqas. I feel like it's the only subject I'm not capable of getting a 9 in because the questions are so vague and the answers are so specific. Cheers to my school for changing exam boards from Edexcel which was so easy, to Eduqas, being the only subject I'm having to only rely on class notes for.

i want to do a lot of past and specimen papers in order to find out my weaker areas and improve exam technique. The thing is tho, my school will probably use these papers to create the mocks which would not simulate the real GCSE exams properly. Can questions in the real GCSEs be from/similar to these paper questions or will it be purely spontaneous? Sorry if this sounded dumb. ofc i wouldn't care if the same questions came up in the mocks cuz i would get a better mark but can this happen for the real thing too?

I wouldn't mind doing that for biology. We're doing Eduqas 9-1 and it's about the most messed up exam board you can get. What is hard about Eduqas? Well, the questions are vague and the answers are overall specific. It doesn't matter if u said the same thing, it has to be on the mark scheme and there is no 'allow' section either. It's like a stubborn,spoilt 7 year old. Unless this exam board is acknowledged as the hardest and u get an insane amount of UMS per mark, I'm doomed to fail my biology GCSE although it was one of my strongest subjects. With this exam board I get like 50% and my best is 70. With AQA, it's 70 to 90(our teacher used AQA papers occasionally in year 10).
There's no way I can do exam practice because it is very different even to what it used to be itself(you'll find that Eduqas/WJEC past papers are far easier than the 9-1 specimens). There just isn't a paper with a similar level of difficulty. That also makes their Question bank useless. So what's next since you can't use past papers? Revision guide? Textbooks? There are none. Yes, I just literally said that. The closest thing we can get to Eduqas is WJEC because Eduqas is the english-adapted version. WJEC was notorious for being an evil exam board but Eduqas is brutal and barbaric. The specifiation is the only thing we can use and the lack of material is pathetic. What kind of exam board doesn't even have the proper resources for it other than ones designed by delusional idiots?
For the other subjects, now that you've mentioned it, it is worthwhile to not spoil the mock but how can the same thing be said about biology? I dont want 50% on my mock report. My parents will be very angry with me. Eduqas is not a fair representation of one's ability or weaknesses. It has weaknesses itself and that's not something I can amend. I'd rather have a decent mark and work out a strategy after the mocks when they release more specimen papers or information or something. I hope you an appreciate the situation. Most people seem to be doing AQA so I presume you do AQA as well.
Feel more than free to disagree with any of the points I have made
but I dont feel as if there's any other way. Obviously I could be wrong. I'm sorry if this sounded negative but I couldn't put it any other way. Still, I do greatly appreciate your help!

We have OCR for RSS. The questions are vague and the mark scheme doesn't say much so u can put down anything u want as long as it has some relevance. But I'd rather have Eduqas for RSS as I want to do biology for A level and biology is more useful in life. RSS can be as well but it depends on what u want to do. Honestly, I would say that AQA A levels are easier than Eduqas GCSEs. I would be happy to scrape a 7 in my biology GCSE because getting a 9 is out of the question. I suppose it may actually make A levels easier but only if I could survive Eduqas.
How are u coping with Eduqas RSS?

Surely you realise the grade boundaries are set depending how how the entire cohort perform so other people who sit the exam from the same exam board will find it hard as well. Blaming the exam board is nothing and you are just cheating yourself because you fail to take responsibility. Grow up and work hard. I sat my chemistry exam with a fractured wrist and managed to write with my hand in a cast and finished the exam before anyone and still managed to get 100UMS in all 3 papers. Would've been nice if I complained and said I want extra time or a scribe but I took the hit and continued. So should you.

Like you said, biology is far more important and I do not care for RS in the slightest. I will also be doing Biology A Level. I'm coping ok with Eduqas RS, it's just that it's so Catholic-heavy and I actually have to remember stupid theologian quotes to get decent marks. I've been achieving 7s recently and my teacher says I'm doing fine but a 9 seems far too ambitious, especially considering the fact that nobody thus far has achieved one.

I'm not complaining at all. I'm just explaining where I am coming from. So you're saying there's nothing wrong with an exam board that cannot even provide its own textbook and probably won't be taken into consideration at all? And that's complaining? Please explain. A broken hand does not stop you from thinking or learning. A broken exam board stops both of these things.