Your tales of mock results compared To leaving results

Aoifey!

marko93 wrote: »

Woah! I need to pull off a miracle like that! Any suggestions!
As for maths, i only do ordinary, but if i constantly just do exam papers, will that be sufficient? To bring it from a D3 to A-B?

If you have trouble understanding then maybe some grinds or ask your teacher if they can go over those chapters again. Once you understand it it's much easier to remember it. For the rest of it, it's just a matter of learning it really. Get a good revision book (I used Revise Wise), and write out your own notes so they'll stay in your head better and you can flick through them easily.

Go through all the short questions in the exam papers - they tend to repeat themselves. If your teacher is willing, you could ask them to correct some long questions for you. If not get the marking scheme from examinations.ie and check your own answers.

And don't forget about your experiments! In most revision books there's a section on experiments so you could look at that to refresh your memory on them. Normally actually doing the experiment will make it stick in your mind, but it's the little nitty gritty bits that people get caught out on.


And for Maths a lot of it is about going over the exam papers. As long as you understand what your doing, the next step is to go through the past 5 or 6 years and do all the questions. And don't forget, in the exam answer every bit of the question even if you have no idea what to do - you could get attempt marks for trying to do something.

Whiskey757

I got my mocks back recently. I told my mam that my prediction was about 350 points because I did very little to no study, but knew what was going to come up on some of the papers.

I got 345 (ooh so close!) but some of the corrections were dodgey and we actually sent our geography papers back to get corrected, and my grade went to ten percent(!) (from 53 to 63) which brought my points to 355. Some of my other points were surprising as well, such as construction. I got 42 when I was expecting a B. I haven't been through the paper yet though so I don't know what the correction is like. So in my mocks I got in-around 350 points.

The course I want in college is 420 points. I worked it out and if I get an A1 in maths (I got an A1 in the mocks with no study) I need to average a B3. I have not done any study yet. I'm thinking of just hitting the exam papers from now until the leaving. Reading through a book does not work for me.

Fluorescence

Whiskey757 wrote: »

The course I want in college is 420 points. I worked it out and if I get an A1 in maths (I got an A1 in the mocks with no study) I need to average a B3. I have not done any study yet. I'm thinking of just hitting the exam papers from now until the leaving. Reading through a book does not work for me.

To be honest that'd the best thing you can do. The leaving cert is all about learning to take the exam - you could know all the answers but not put them down on the page correctly :rolleyes:. Exam papers all the way.

Ayrtonf7

Well my LC course is 440, And I just got 405 in my Mocks.

to be honest I am kinda of getting worried at this point. As the OP said ive heard people dropping 100pts and Ive heard people going up 100pts...

Guess for me that means one thing, foot to floor for the rest of the few months.

TD1993

I got 490 looking for 550 is that possible??

justBlake

hoping to go from 190( i failed 3 of my higher level subjects maths, chem,bio) to about 410 ish that being said I've learned a **** load just from going over things in school and recon i could get about 350 ish atm hope i do okay:s

Canard

Somehow got 525 in my mocks, and cant help but feel the only way is down. Definitely not up anyway, unless I'm extremely lucky.

Gonna take the advice on this thread and double the amount of exam q's I do for business and probably get grinds for maths ones or something - seems to work wonders!

biohaiid

I need to go up at LEAST 30 points.
It's doable. I hope.

KamiKazeKitten

I honestly can't remember what I got in my Mocks, and it was only a year ago!

But what I can remember is I went up from 470 to 525, so definitely it can be done. I'll try find the proper grades at home later....

Good luck to ye all!

Bears and Vodka

KamiKazeKitten wrote: »

I honestly can't remember what I got in my Mocks, and it was only a year ago!

But what I can remember is I went up from 470 to 525, so definitely it can be done. I'll try find the proper grades at home later....

So I guess you got 470 in your mocks

Canard

She meant her grades, smartass. :P

Incompetent

justBlake wrote: »

hoping to go from 190( i failed 3 of my higher level subjects maths, chem,bio) to about 410 ish that being said I've learned a **** load just from going over things in school and recon i could get about 350 ish atm hope i do okay:s

Same as me man. I got something like 230 in my mocks and want mid 400s. I failed 3 of mine too!

Togepi

I got 400 in my mocks last year, just (barely) studying the night before each exam. I ended up with 435 in the real thing. I'm not really sure whether that was because I got complacent and didn't study enough, or because the mocks were marked poorly. Possibly both! It didn't help that I only needed 435 and everyone kept telling me I'd get that 'no bother'. :cool:

Mocks:
English - D2 (it was originally a C2 but it had to be remarked because, being a mock, it wasn't marked perfectly. I was happier to get a D2, I deserved that grade.)
Irish - B2 (including an oral, I think, which I was unrealistically given an A1 in)
Maths (Ordinary) - C1
French - A2 (I was devastated, I knew it'd mean I'd do worse in the real thing. I've since discovered it was the worst marked mock I've ever seen!)
Art - B3 (I think... that's probably my art history mark though)
DCG - D1 (no project)
History - D1 (I think)

Leaving Cert:
English - B1 (I was so proud - 80.25%!)
Irish - B2 :cool: (wanted an A)
Maths (Ordinary) - B1
French - B2 (thought I got an A)
Art - B3
DCG - C2 (the project brought me way up, my drawing exam was actually worse than the mock one)
History - D2 (spent much of the exam wondering why I had done history) :cool:

I maintain that I would've done better in the Leaving if I had done a lot worse in the mocks. :P

justBlake

the thing is mock results are becoming less of a hint as to how you really do because a lot of subjects have parts of the course finished atleast a month before the exam for me i have lcvp(40%), dcg(40%) irish(40%) engineering(40%) out of the way and dcg and engineering are 2 of my subjects im hoping for atleast a B3

Coeurdepirate

I need to go up like 90 points from my mocks but I'm still not working

HA!

It's impossible to tell how much you will come up. It depends on what time of the year your mocks are, how much your teacher told you, how you felt on the day, how difficult the mock was.

The only thing that can help you right now is by getting off Boards and the internet and t it's going away and doing some study.

I know I sound like a dick but its the truth. Talking about things doesn't get then done!

plein de force

Coeurdepirate wrote: »

I need to go up like 90 points from my mocks but I'm still not working

don't think you won't be able to do it. that's exactly how much i went up by from mocks to the real thing lastt year

Dwellingdweller

Hey guys, I've been studying all year constantly, but not really killing myself (2-3 hours an evening, doing all my h.w, and had weekends off up until the easter break) and I got 465 in the mocks! I was pretty happy with that as I wanted to do general science in NUIG (370 points last year), so I was safe, but now I want to do biomedical science in NUIG (515 points last year... :pac:), and I was wondering if you wonderful people believe it'd be possible for me to go from 465 up to 530-ish? thankyou!

Davyhal

I dropped from 480 in the mocks to 410 in the Leaving... I got too confident/cocky and just completely stopped doing any real study cos I thought I was fully prepared. Even was an idiot and went out 2 or 3 nights a week up until the leaving and even went out on Saturday night during the leaving... Thank God the points for my course dropped to 385 the year I did my leaving...

partyatmygaff

More people go up than down. That said... complacency has cost people dearly in the past.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AjdswhIupxjadGE0ajFfdk5heFB6R2FaU1lXendBeEE&pli=1#gid=0

fizzyorange

I need to go up from 290 to 340 but I've done a lot more work since the mocks so I hope it will pay off.

fatbastard

My mock results were apalling !! LC results were bad .. :P 400 points in the actual LC, best results (As and Bs, in German French Physics and Bio and Maths) did cráp in the arts :P History Geography English Irish etc

Palytoxin

I went up fifty from 500, just barely got into my course, I think I could have got higher only everyone kept saying, "Oh you'll be grand, everyone goes up loads in the real thing, the mocks are way harder", and then complacency kicked in

JonnyMcNamee

Got 415 in the mocks with night before study and failed honors maths! Lookin for 500-510 in LC. Pretty sure that if I keep going the way that I am now I should get it!

ViveLaVie

The mocks are total crap IMO and don't give any kind of accurate guideline as to how you'll actually do. In my mocks I think I got around 410... it was five years ago now so I'm not totally sure. I ended up getting 500 in the real thing. My friend got 400 and went up to 540, another friend shot up from 270 to 410. I do know someone though who got 500 in the mocks and went down to 380 in the real deal. The mocks are only good for giving you a practice 'run through' and a very vague idea of how you perform under that sort of pressure. They're not marked properly either. There is no proper, unitary standard marking scheme as independent companies set different papers. The papers don't undergo the rigorous revisions they are subject to when set by the state. As well as that, the markers are often not experts in the subjects they're correcting e.g. a regular Joe with no experience in Maths or Science might correct a Maths/Science paper and not give marks if a wrong answer were given to a question despite the student displaying some correct work leading up to the answer, whereas a seasoned Maths/Science teacher may do so as they would recognise the correct formulae were applied. The main thing to take away from it is the experience and some general feedback - so if you did well in English Paper I but badly in Paper II then you need to work more in that area etc. Going through exam papers is really the best way to work and gets you used to working within the format of the actual exam. It's been shown in studies before that students who give themselves a few 'mock' run throughs do much better in the real thing - they give you a feel for writing well under exam conditions.

spurious

ViveLaVie wrote: »

The mocks are total crap IMO and don't give any kind of accurate guideline as to how you'll actually do. In my mocks I think I got around 410... it was five years ago now so I'm not totally sure. I ended up getting 500 in the real thing. My friend got 400 and went up to 540, another friend shot up from 270 to 410. I do know someone though who got 500 in the mocks and went down to 380 in the real deal. The mocks are only good for giving you a practice 'run through' and a very vague idea of how you perform under that sort of pressure. They're not marked properly either. There is no proper, unitary standard marking scheme as independent companies set different papers. The papers don't undergo the rigorous revisions they are subject to when set by the state. As well as that, the markers are often not experts in the subjects they're correcting e.g. a regular Joe with no experience in Maths or Science might correct a Maths/Science paper and not give marks if a wrong answer were given to a question despite the student displaying some correct work leading up to the answer, whereas a seasoned Maths/Science teacher may do so as they would recognise the correct formulae were applied. The main thing to take away from it is the experience and some general feedback - so if you did well in English Paper I but badly in Paper II then you need to work more in that area etc. Going through exam papers is really the best way to work and gets you used to working within the format of the actual exam. It's been shown in studies before that students who give themselves a few 'mock' run throughs do much better in the real thing - they give you a feel for writing well under exam conditions.

Add to that how many people have already found out from friends what is coming up.

Personally speaking, I agree with you - the mocks are a terrible waste of time. Any teacher with half a clue can tell you within a grade what their students will get if they work to the best of their ability. Timing for questions can be done in class tests. The papers are corrected to varying standards. The standard of question is often very poor and does not reflect what is actually on the syllabi.

The mocks are a money making racket. About 2000 euro just for papers for a 400 pupil school (Junior and Leaving classes). Multiply that by 750+ schools and throw in corrections sometimes at 100 euro per student and somebody is making themselves a nice little pile for a month's work.

ViveLaVie

spurious wrote: »

Add to that how many people have already found out from friends what is coming up.

Personally speaking, I agree with you - the mocks are a terrible waste of time. Any teacher with half a clue can tell you within a grade what their students will get if they work to the best of their ability. Timing for questions can be done in class tests. The papers are corrected to varying standards. The standard of question is often very poor and does not reflect what is actually on the syllabi.

The mocks are a money making racket. About 2000 euro just for papers for a 400 pupil school (Junior and Leaving classes). Multiply that by 750+ schools and throw in corrections sometimes at 100 euro per student and somebody is making themselves a nice little pile for a month's work.

Absolutely, totally agree with you.

Con_Con93

I wouldn't trust mock results whatsoever. In my ones last year I got 345, and that was with cheating in all of mine by getting all the questions on here. I was gutted with that at the time cause I was doing my bit all year and was expecting 400+. But then I just did that extra half hour every night and a lot of subjects came together for me and in the end I got 490. From now on its just important to do that little extra and you'll find that stuff starts to stick in your head.

Corruptedmorals

My mocks were marked extremely harshly. (well everyones were, not me singled out or anything). Must vary from exam board though. Anyway, I went up by more than 100 points, probably 140ish. Think my mean result was something like 58%, pretty much everything was C's but can't remember exact grades except English, which went from C1 to A1. Everything jumped 2 grades or more, except for maths which was static.

I think marking harshly works for most people, it drives people to do better and proove the mock results wrong. Of course could also heavily discourage people from doing their best. But generous results are probably worse all around for instilling cockiness.

I did make use of the blatant exam content details being posted in this forum back then. Is that even allowed anymore I wonder..