Mocks Start Now!

PurpleFistMixer

Gotta suck spending the entire midterm feeling guilty about not studying, then. =P

Mimikyu

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newgrange

Solitary, that is a problem with many of the companies that generate the mocks. There have even been qs on the mock papers from these companies that are not on the subject syllabus. The mock papers do not go through the same rigorous checking and re-checking procedure that the actual exam papers do, which leads to sloppiness.

This is why the mocks are one, but only one indicator of how you will do in the Junior/Leaving Cert.

Could your teacher find the railway? It could of course, just be a very difficult question, which again, is unlikely in an SEC paper, as for Junior Cert., they are really trying to give you an opportunity to show you know stuff, not trying to catch you out.

If it was a mistake on the mock paper, I hope your teacher asks for either a refund or a discount on their next order. The mock paper companies make lots of money, and there is no excuse for such an error.

Were an 'unanswerable' q to appear on an SEC paper, allowance would be made for it in the marking, not to mention the huge brouhaha teachers would make of it, as it is impossible to measure how much a 'wrong' question upset a student in the exam, or how long they spent trying to work it out, before some of them realised it could not be worked out.

Mysteryfish

I have my irish tapework mock coming up this wednesday and i am so dead! It's not fair the way they put people with really heavy accents on the tape, so that the irish sounds so different! It's like they want you to fail. French tapework is so much easier.

JCB

newgrange wrote:

The mock paper companies make lots of money, and there is no excuse for such an error.

Who are these companies? Does anyone know how many or what their names are so that you could complain directly to them?

Mysteryfish

i think that some of the companies are the ones that compile the past papers. At least i think we're getting our papers from EdCo.

Corruptedmorals

Mysteryfish wrote:

I have my irish tapework mock coming up this wednesday and i am so dead! It's not fair the way they put people with really heavy accents on the tape, so that the irish sounds so different! It's like they want you to fail. French tapework is so much easier.

Try to block out the accents. And distractions. For my mocks and my JC, the listening was a nightmare for me....during the pauses in the tape I could clearly hear the classroom on one side who were ahead of my tape and the classroom on the other side who were behind. So...distracting. That said...I got 95% in the irish listening....can't remember what I got in the french one..and of course, for the J.C you're not told.

If you can't hear it properly, tell the teacher. They always stress that before the listening.

newgrange

I don't know which company your school used, but I know one such company is called something like the 'Dublin Examining Board' - they are not officially approved SEC exam 'mocks' though - the SEC do not issue mock papers, except in the case of a new subject or new syllabus, and they call them 'sample papers' not 'mocks'.

Your teacher, or whatever teacher ordered the mock papers will know which company they used. Personally, I have never used any outside company for mock papers for my students. Yes, I'm a teacher, but I drop in here every so often.

Mysteryfish

what worries me is that i won't have enough time in between to write down the answers. Whenever we do listening in class the pauses are always so short and i can't check my spelling or anything :-(

Corruptedmorals

JCB wrote:

Who are these companies? Does anyone know how many or what their names are so that you could complain directly to them?

You're better off asking a teacher, who would know from ordering the papers from whatever company your school uses.

The worst thing about the mocks is that they're not corrected properly. When you get your papers back and you think they're marked unfairly, show the teacher for that subject. At least then your report will be accurate. Last year, some teachers went through the entire paper(s) with us, I went up by 11% in Biz, 9% in Science and 2% in Maths, that's how bad it was.

newgrange

You know you can get the marking schemes for previous (real) papers online?

http://www.examinations.ie/main.php?l=en&mc=en&sc=ep

Doesn't like Mozilla for some reason (crap code...cough), but will work in IE.

Raphael

The problem with Irish aurals, is that the people they get to do them are speaking connaught or ulster irish, wheras you're learning Munster Irish. Makes it quite difficult

Rozabeez

yeah they can be hard to understand

kirving

In geography the photo nd map were the same, the railway tracks were in the right of the photo, i also ran out of time on Geography

declan_lgs

I didn't do that picture question in Geography...
I picked the Volcano question, the tourist question (?), and the OS question (we were supposed to do 3, weren't we?)..
had bout half an hour left at the end, and almost everyone else was writing...
I flew through the whole test, guessed alot of the answers... didn't bother going over my work after, waaay too tired (I had like 5 boring hours of study (sleep) before that... all day, geography... never coming in early (at 9) for exams again)

Mimikyu

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Victor

Can people **not** identify specific questions?

PurpleFistMixer

Victor wrote:

Can people **not** identify specific questions?

Oops.

declan_lgs I actually have a weird feeling my school has the same papers as you... o.o

Anyway, myself had geography today. Home ec was in the morning so I blissfully did not go in for that. As a result I was in such a non-exam-taking-mood and daydreamed thoroughly through geography. Didn't do as well as I thought I would, but there was no crashing and burning involved, I think.
CSPE and French tomorrow. Should be easy... although according to some people their french paper was evil.

Mysteryfish

Just had my Irish Aural. It wasn't too horrible, at least there was no people with heavy accents on it. I think I'll have passed, I don't want to say whether I did well or not in case I jinx it. Yay! One exam down only 14 more to go!

Rozabeez

YAY! only 3 more exams to go for me!

Diggins

heh mocks are only there to make u realise that you have to start studying its nothin to be worried about. well mine start in 12 days buts i am relaxin

Big Ears

Rozabeez wrote:

YAY! only 3 more exams to go for me!

Same here .

Rozabeez

well i have 4 if you include an aural, but it's only 2 days!

Big Ears

Rozabeez wrote:

well i have 4 if you include an aural, but it's only 2 days!

I presume im going to have either a French or Irish oral , or possibly both :eek: .

Rozabeez

nah did Irish, have a french one.

Raphael

There are no orals in the Junior cert Big Ears. Just evil tape tests

Rozabeez

*cough it's spelled aural*

declan_lgs

declan_lgs I actually have a weird feeling my school has the same papers as you... o.o

probably... I think alot of the papers are the same.

I've Science, CSPE, and Irish P2 to do... Just can't wait till they're done

Big Ears

Raphael wrote:

Just evil tape tests

Of course , they're always diguising things ! :mad: .

[shakes fist madly into the air]

Mimikyu

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