The Student Room Group

Are mocks important?

I did so badly on my mocks yesterday -I'm upset. I don't know what to do. I'm in Year 10 and it's my first time doing it. I have completely failed my plan. I don't know what to do. How will I survive Year 10 and Year 11? I'm so unprepared for it. I keep getting bad grades on tests and I'm so worried. What do I do? How can I learn how to study and revise?
Firstly chill, you are in year 10 doing badly in your mocks needs to be sorted but it isn’t a full on crisis. Also plans almost never work - it is great to have o r to keep you on track but don’t sweat if you stray from it. Finally when you get your mocks back identify what you did badly on a focus on that to start with and make sure you are understanding and consolidating new content that gets taught. That’s what I try to do although I am not great a consolidating new topics
Hope this helps
Reply 2
Original post by Nerolio
I did so badly on my mocks yesterday -I'm upset. I don't know what to do. I'm in Year 10 and it's my first time doing it. I have completely failed my plan. I don't know what to do. How will I survive Year 10 and Year 11? I'm so unprepared for it. I keep getting bad grades on tests and I'm so worried. What do I do? How can I learn how to study and revise?

you are okay these mocks are not important, you will get better in year 11 in my year 10 ones i was getting 4s in my first year 11 mocks i got 6/7s across all subjects and one or two 8s, i say active recall all the way make flashcards or get a blank piece of paper and write everything you know and then check it and add extras and past papers are a necessity
you don't even have to worry about in year 10, i did worse than i expected in my year 11 mocks (all 6/7's while predicted 7/8/9) yet in my GCSEs i got what i expected. considering you're in year 10 you've only done maybe half of the specification, once you get to the final stages of year 11 you'll know what you need to work on, and from your year 10 mocks you could use them for study material too
Original post by Nerolio
I did so badly on my mocks yesterday -I'm upset. I don't know what to do. I'm in Year 10 and it's my first time doing it. I have completely failed my plan. I don't know what to do. How will I survive Year 10 and Year 11? I'm so unprepared for it. I keep getting bad grades on tests and I'm so worried. What do I do? How can I learn how to study and revise?
Original post by Nerolio
I did so badly on my mocks yesterday -I'm upset. I don't know what to do. I'm in Year 10 and it's my first time doing it. I have completely failed my plan. I don't know what to do. How will I survive Year 10 and Year 11? I'm so unprepared for it. I keep getting bad grades on tests and I'm so worried. What do I do? How can I learn how to study and revise?


lemme tell you this, i in yr 10 and even in yr 11 was legit so lazy and stupid was lowkey borderline passing basiclly failing with 3s and 4s for my subject but realised i acc wanted to study medicine so needed to improve my grade ALOT. i realised this a little too like and acc started grinding out everyday no break like legit non stop machine 3 months before my actual gcse where i was getting 4s. did my exams and got 9s and 8s for everything except for french which i got a 5 lol because coz i couldnt be asked to study for that subject. Moral story yr 10 was useless lowkey most of yr 11you can deffo get the high grades as long as you lose the ''your naturally stupid'' mindset coz once i did this i improved loads. if i have any regrets not starting the grind at the beginning of yr 11 coz i couldve got straight 9s but oh well. but your in yr 10 so really its good you care but at this point your grades dont determine how you do in the end. and by the way i am by no means smart i am very average just work hard and am in yr 13 now getting predicted A*A*A*, so trust me you can be average or even below and get good grades
Original post by Nerolio
I did so badly on my mocks yesterday -I'm upset. I don't know what to do. I'm in Year 10 and it's my first time doing it. I have completely failed my plan. I don't know what to do. How will I survive Year 10 and Year 11? I'm so unprepared for it. I keep getting bad grades on tests and I'm so worried. What do I do? How can I learn how to study and revise?


I'm in year 11 now and my teachers have always told us that whilst y10 mocks are not as important (unless you're applying to private schools) y11 nov mocks would be at least notable because that's what your likely going to send to the sixth forms and colleges you want to apply for. Focus to do well in these mocks and then your strolling till its the actually gcses. But also don't stress if you still do bad at these mocks, there's a reason why we can still call up and apply if we get great grades at gcse.

All in all, y10 mocks matter little depending on where your applying. Just focus for gcse and if you can focus on your first set of y11 nov mocks!
Original post by Nerolio
I did so badly on my mocks yesterday -I'm upset. I don't know what to do. I'm in Year 10 and it's my first time doing it. I have completely failed my plan. I don't know what to do. How will I survive Year 10 and Year 11? I'm so unprepared for it. I keep getting bad grades on tests and I'm so worried. What do I do? How can I learn how to study and revise?


Hi @Nerolio,

I'm sorry to hear this and hope your feeling a bit better about it now.

One thing I would recommend is speaking with your teachers and seeing what improvements you can make and discuss the things you are struggling with. You have to remind yourself this is the first time you have done this as you have said so its something new that you can hopefully get use to.


I would recommend looking into the different revision techniques that are out there and seeing which ones you perform best with. A lot of the time its a combination of a couple due to the different content you learn within the subjects.

Some different revision techniques include:
1. Revision cards
2. Mind maps
3. Youtube videos - some people that I know are recommended include freesciencelessons, for English there is Mr Bruff he does english literature and language
4. Practice questions - maybe see if your teachers can give you some to try out and so you can get familiar with the structure.
5. For maths, practice is key and the only way to improve. I would recommend mathswatch for this I found that very useful and also noting down the technique and then you can refer back to this when doing practice questions.
6. The GCSE books you can get for your exam board I found these rather useful for most I think they are CGP you could see if your high school sells them cheaper otherwise maybe look into getting them second hand from amazon or eBay.
7. For the bit in your english language exam where you have to write a short story, I would recommend trying to read a bit if you do enjoy that as it can not only give you ideas, it can show you how to structure them and also give you new words that you can use.

Just give yourself the time to improve and get a hang of things but if you can find out the best revision techniques before the start of Year 11 that would help so that you can focus on learning the content rather than what can make you perform the best.

Hope that helps, let me know if you have any other questions :smile:

Rebecca
3rd Year Geoenvironmental Hazards Student

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