Study and exam skills
A mock result is a map, not a verdict. This guide shows students and parents how to sort every lost mark into knowledge, technique or timing, and what to do next.
Review a mock by sorting every lost mark into one of three categories: knowledge (the material was not known), technique (the knowledge was there but the answer did not earn it) or timing (the marks were never reached). Each category has a different fix, which is why “revise more” is not a plan. The review takes one evening per subject and changes what the remaining weeks are for.
This guide is for students and parents in the mock-exam season before IGCSE, A-Level or IB finals. It includes an error-log template and a worked example. It takes about six minutes to read.
Mock exams exist to be wrong in private so the real thing goes right in public. The grade on the front is the least useful part; it flattens a hundred separate events into one number. The diagnostic value is in the script: which questions, which marks, and why each one was lost.
This reframing matters emotionally too. A student who reads a mock as a verdict loses a week to despair or denial. A student who reads it as a map gains a to-do list. Parents set the tone here: the first question at the kitchen table is “what did we learn?”, not “what did you get?”.
Go through the script question by question and assign every lost mark to exactly one category:
The pattern across a paper tells the real story. Mostly knowledge errors mean the revision timetable needs surgery. Mostly technique errors mean the student knows more than the grade shows, and the fix is quick. Mostly timing errors mean the plan for the exam itself needs rehearsing.
Keep one log per subject, four columns per lost mark. It takes minutes per paper and it converts a dispiriting document into a queue of fixable tasks.
| Question | Marks lost | Category | Fix and date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paper 2 Q4(b), simultaneous equations | 3 | Knowledge | Re-learn elimination method; ten practice questions by Friday; retest next week |
| Paper 2 Q7, “evaluate” question answered as description | 4 | Technique | Command-term drill; redo Q7 against the mark scheme on Sunday |
| Paper 2 final question untouched | 6 | Timing | Two timed sections this week practising the move-on rule |
A week later, redo the logged questions without notes. Marks recovered come off the log; marks lost again stay on, and if the same item survives three attempts it stops being revision and becomes a teaching gap. Our guide to using past papers properly covers the marking and timing work this log feeds on.
The conversation about the mock grade sets up everything that follows, so it is worth doing deliberately. Open with the map framing: the mock did its job, which was to show us what to work on. Then look at the script together with curiosity rather than judgement, and let your child do the categorising where possible. A student who sorts their own errors owns the fixes; a student handed a parental analysis owes you nothing but silence.
Two things to avoid: comparisons (with siblings, classmates, or your own schooldays) and verdicts (“you are just not a maths person”). Both teach the child that the mock measured them rather than their preparation, which is precisely the belief that makes the next paper harder. If the result was genuinely poor, say the useful true thing: this is information arriving early, while it can still be used.
If you are the student and you have found this guide, the whole method fits on one index card: every lost mark gets a category, every category gets a fix, every fix gets a date, and every logged question gets redone a week later. That is it. The students who jump grades between mocks and finals are not working more hours than you; they are working the loop.
One warning from experience: the loop only works if you are honest in the marking. Nobody is watching your mock scores except you, which is exactly what makes them useful. Mark generously and you hide the information the mock existed to give you.
The error log is built to be shared. Subject teachers have seen the script already and can confirm or correct the categorisation in minutes; a short email listing the categories per subject usually gets a specific reply, because it is a specific question. Where the mock triggers bigger decisions, such as an IGCSE tier entry, the log is the evidence to bring to that conversation.
If your child works with a tutor, hand over the scripts and the log before the next session, not during it. The session should be spent fixing the top of the list, not discovering it. A tutor who receives a mock script and reads it like an examiner can compress weeks of trial and error into a plan for the remaining ones.
Cambridge runs its exam series in June and November, and most Bali schools sit the June series, with exams in May and June. That places mocks roughly a term earlier, and the post-mock weeks have a natural shape: knowledge errors drive the revision plan, technique errors drive past-paper practice, and timing errors drive timed sections. Two weeks out, the log should be nearly empty and the work nearly all retrieval and pace.
Guard the last fortnight for consolidation and sleep rather than new material, and keep the household calm on purpose. A student carrying a manageable plan into the hall outperforms a student carrying a panic. And if the mock season has dented confidence as well as grades, our guide to rebuilding confidence after academic difficulty is written for exactly that moment.
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