How To Prepare For Mocks Over The Holidays

Create a realistic revision schedule.
Although some students might find it tempting to up their revision to six or seven hours a day during the holidays, it’s important to remember what this period is truly for. You’ve worked hard over the past three or four months, and it’s okay to take some time off to hang out with friends and family or curl up and watch TV.

Your holiday revision schedule doesn’t have to be an exact substitute for your daily school life – two or three hours of focused revision a day will still have a significant positive impact on your subject understanding without turning your entire break into a ‘working holiday’.

Prioritise!
When I was studying my A-Levels, English Lit came quite easily to me – so bar from learning some quotes and completing some past paper essay questions, there wasn’t all that much revision for me to do.

A-Level Chemistry was another story entirely; whilst I didn’t struggle with the content in class, I didn’t tend to remember all that much of it and had to have a much more involved, systematic revision process compared to my other subjects. Evaluate which subjects need lots of work and which ones only need a little push and prioritise your revision accordingly (in my case, perhaps half an hour of English Lit and two hours of Chemistry).

Reflect on any previous class tests.
You’ve likely already had a few class tests and although they may not have felt as big of a deal as your upcoming mocks, they’re an incredibly useful source of feedback.

Spend some time going through your class tests from this term and identify the questions/areas where you consistently lose marks: is it a particular topic or style of question? Are you meeting a few assessment objectives but falling short on another? Knowing where and how you’re losing marks is the first step to gaining them back again.

Don’t stress.
Mocks are exactly that: mocks. They don’t contribute to your final A-Level results and although they can sometimes feel intense, they are relatively low stakes exams. A mock should show you the areas you need to improve upon before your external exams later this year; they don’t need to be perfect, they just need to be an accurate demonstration of your current subject understanding so you know what to build upon in the future.

I knew tons of students who would score poorly in their mocks and walk away with strong grades at the end of the year. Be accepting of any challenging circumstances you’re currently under that might negatively affect your mocks, and understand that a poor mock performance isn’t the end of the road – in fact for lots of students it’s only the start! :biggrin: