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Do students really perform better in mocks than in the real exam?

I looked at the grade boundaries for A-level Psychology last year and I was genuinely shocked - a 66% is required to get an A in the final exam.
My Psychology teacher has frequently graded us as 80% = A and I've been working hard to memorise all of the content needed to get an A and an A*. I emailed her why this was, and she literally said that:
"The reason we inflate the grade boundaries for internal assessment is because students usually perform less well under the pressure of external formal exams than they do during class mocks."

Is that actually true? Do most students do worse in the real exam than in the mock?
Original post by angelinahx
I looked at the grade boundaries for A-level Psychology last year and I was genuinely shocked - a 66% is required to get an A in the final exam.
My Psychology teacher has frequently graded us as 80% = A and I've been working hard to memorise all of the content needed to get an A and an A*. I emailed her why this was, and she literally said that:
"The reason we inflate the grade boundaries for internal assessment is because students usually perform less well under the pressure of external formal exams than they do during class mocks."

Is that actually true? Do most students do worse in the real exam than in the mock?

That all depends. It's true that schools sometimes overinflate grade boundaries, and just last week some teachers in my staffroom were saying that they regret not making the A level mocks harder because too many pupils did well and have got "cocky" as a result so probably won't revise as much as they should for the real exams.

Some people will do worse in real exams due to the pressure but equally some people will thrive on the adrenalin (or just revise more thoroughly because they know it's for real) and do better in the real exams than in the mocks. I don't think you can generalise.
there's no set answer to this, depends on the type of person you are when it comes to these exams as well as the grade boundaries i guess.
inflated grade boundaries for mocks is better imo as you may turn out to have a nice surprise when it comes to the real exams and it can encourage you to keep working consistently throughout the year.

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