What’s the point of mocks?

This is the question thousands of 6^th years are asking these days. They will always seem pointless. Personally once February had arrived I just wanted to get the leaving cert done and get to college. However the mocks can prove to be a vital factor in your results in June.

Firstly let’s clear things up. The mocks are not about knowing the information. Honestly it would be pretty stupid to take high results seriously. Virtually everyone knows at least some of the paper before entering the exam. For example boards.ie has over 2000 posts in its mocks thread where students share the contents of the different papers.  Last year I tried my hardest to avoid it but in the end I always had a peek at the answers. It doesn’t do any harm. Your Leaving Cert result will usually be higher than your mocks result. I barely eclipsed 400 points in the mocks and that was with the help of the internet.

The real strong point of the mocks is timing. They allow you to get your timing right for June. If you make a mistake, be happy. You can be pretty damn sure that people who make a mistake in February won’t make the same mistake in June. We all know about the enduring English paper 2 that never seems to end. However some exams will surprise you with time constraints. The timing for Business studies is really tough. The sheer enormity of the course means that you can’t spend time allowing your mind to think, it’s a race throughout. If you think your hand was sore after English then you’re going to need an ice-pack after Business. You’re also going to discover that some subjects have been given the most ridiculous paper lengths. I honestly have no idea where the SEC gets the time limit for ordinary level Irish. There was nobody in the class left at the end of the exam. I left early in both papers in the actual Leaving and I got an A1. By the way I’m not being braggy; you’ll feel the same way after the exam regardless of result.

One thing I hope people learn is that the Leaving Cert is a very hard exam. There are always going to be people who try to bluff their way through a tough exam. One of the funniest moments of my exams was HL English paper 2.  A friend had studied one poet. He was certain it would come up. Heck it had come up on the mocks it was a million to one shot it wouldn’t be on the real thing. The poet wasn’t on the paper. The entire room laughed when we saw it, even the examiner had a chuckle. (It wasn’t that she was a cruel old woman, mores so that she had told him it was a dumb thing to do). So yeah learn at least 4/5 poets. I learned 4 and they all came up, I should have learned 5 and now know how a big a risk I was taking. So hopefully you get badly caught out in the mocks and realise you can’t let the same thing happen in June!

My final bit of advice. Big changes can happen in a short period of time. I have a neighbour who got 160 in the mocks and 520 in the leaving. He was ashamed of his mocks. He locked himself up in a room and forced himself to study. He learned from the mistakes he made in the mocks. At the end of the day, nobody gives a damn about your mocks. I honestly can’t remember whether I got 405 or 410.  Sometimes a good wakeup call is all you need. It can have the opposite effect as well. I’ve heard of and know a few people who became lackadaisical and complacent with their results. They got the points they needed in the mocks but in June they came up short. Don’t let the same thing happen to you.