A guide for parents · November to January
Mock exams: what a mock grade means
A mock is a practice run of the real exams, set and marked by the school, usually between November and January of Year 11 or Year 13. The grade is the school’s estimate from one sitting, often against an older year’s grade boundaries, so it shows where things stand in the winter rather than what the result will be in August.
What mocks are for
Schools use mocks to practise the conditions of the real exams (the hall, the timing, several papers in a week) and to find the topics a student has not yet got. At A level the mock grades often feed the predicted grades that go on a UCAS application, and at GCSE they can decide which tier a student is entered for in maths, science and languages.
Most schools build mocks from the boards’ past papers or from the boards’ own practice papers, which is why a mock paper can look exactly like a real one.
How a mock is graded
The teacher marks the paper with the board’s mark scheme and then turns the total into a grade, usually with the grade boundaries from a recent summer. Some schools use slightly higher boundaries than the board did, to leave room to improve; some adjust for a paper sat before the whole course has been taught. Either way the grade is the school’s judgement, not the board’s.
If you have the marks, the grade calculator shows the grade the same mark would have got on each year’s real boundaries, which is a fair way to see how much the choice of year matters.
What to do after the mock
Ask to see the marked papers, not just the grade. The useful part is where the marks were lost: a topic that was never learnt, questions left blank at the end because time ran out, or answers that knew the content but missed what the mark scheme wanted. Each needs a different fix, and the first two are much easier to sort out in January than in May.
Past papers are the best practice for the real exams, and every board’s are linked here by course. Sitting one under timed conditions every week or two between the mocks and the summer, then marking it with its mark scheme, makes the summer exams feel familiar.
Where to check
Checked against these on . The rules change from year to year, so the pages above are the ones to trust if anything here disagrees with them.
Common questions
Do mock results count towards the final grade?
No. GCSE and A level grades come only from the exams sat in the summer (and any coursework the course has). Mocks matter because of what schools do with them: predicted grades, tier entries and sometimes sixth form places.
My child got a 4 in their maths mock. Is that a pass?
A grade 4 is what the government calls a standard pass, and a 5 a strong pass. A 4 in English and maths matters because students in England who do not have one must keep studying the subject after 16. A mock 4 in the winter is a starting point that months of practice can move.
Why is the mock grade lower than the teacher predicted?
Often because the mock was sat before the whole course had been taught, or against strict boundaries. Ask the teacher which it was and which topics lost the most marks.
Can we get the mock papers to practise with?
The school may share them. If the mock was a board’s past paper, the paper and its mark scheme are usually on the board’s website, and cookie links every one by course.