Thursday, April 30, 2026
Mock exams are a crucial part of the year for students if you are preparing them for official exams. They allow you to see how your students are progressing and make a recommendation based on their results, so they know what to expect at the end of the school year. Because these exams are so crucial, it’s essential that you manage them well so that the results you get are as reliable as possible. So, what are the key points to remember when you are setting up and running mock exams in your centre? In this blog post, we will set out the key points that you should bear in mind when dealing with these important exams.
It goes without saying that if you are going to run effective mock exams, that these exams should emulate the real exam as much as possible. This means in terms of the format of the exam, the time that each part takes and the instructions you give to the students. The papers should also be given in the same order as the day of the exam, even if you can’t do it all in one day. Students should sit in rows and there should be silence from the moment the exam is given until the moment that it is collected by the teacher.
When looking at the key parts of the exam that will give you a reliable indication of when students are going to be ready for the exam, then the first part to look at is reading. In the research we have carried out into mock results and real results, it has been proven that students that do well in reading in the mock exam are much more likely to succeed in the real exam. It’s also the part that is likely to see the least improvement between the mock and the real exam.
Students have lots of things to do out of class. Whether that be other school work, responsibilities or work itself, they are going to have a lot on their mind apart from English. It’s important that you consider the time of year that you run the mock exams and make sure that it doesn’t clash with commonly busy times for students such as end-of-term school exams, for example. The day of the week that you run the exams is also important, as there may be some students that just can’t come on those days, so maybe two mock sessions might be more suitable.
Before you do the exams, make sure you have already decided what marks are going to constitute which recommendation. Write these recommendations out beforehand so that when you get the results, you can review them and just copy and paste the appropriate recommendation. You may have three or even four different recommendation templates depending on what options you have for students in exam-level groups.
When students have done the real exam, it’s essential to keep a record of these marks so you can compare them to the mock marks that the students have obtained. With these marks, you can look at the difference between the marks that students obtained in each part to see the average improvement that they make before the real exam. You can use this average to guide your recommendations the following year, as you are better aware of the improvement your students are likely to make.
You must choose the exam you use carefully. Make sure it is from a credible source, and ideally an official past paper of the exam that your students are going to take. Look at the various options of exams in the exam books so you can choose the one that is not much harder or easier than the average exam for that level. If you want to, you can test these exams with groups that you know are at the correct level to see what results they get.
The recommendations are just as important as the time that you send these to students or parents. You must keep in mind the deadlines for signing up for the real exam and send these along with the results and recommendations. This gives students and parents time to look over their options and make a decision about what to do.
Sometimes, students have bad days, and you might see that the mock exam is not a true representation of their ability in the real exam. In this case, you can take into account the other exams they might have done in class, and their performance in class in general when making a recommendation. You might also want to consider that some students perform much worse in timed exam conditions, and this is something that they need to work on.
Mock exams are generally seen as summative assessment, in which a final mark is given, and the marks are not analysed in any way for teaching purposes. However, they can also be used in a formative way- you can see the areas in which students have got the weakest marks and work on those areas in class before the real exam.
It also goes without saying that you need to know how to mark the exams correctly so that you get reliable results which reflect the mark that the students are going to get. This means knowing the parts that carry double marks, for example, or knowing how to mark the writing at different levels. If you don’t know how to do this, then your recommendation is not going to be as reliable as it should be.
Mock exams are a great way to track your students’ progress and make sure they are on-track when it comes to working towards taking an official exam. However, these exams have to be run in such as way so the results obtained are reliable indicators of students’ performance and meaningful recommendations can be made. If you want any more information on how to interpret exam results and what our research into exam results has told us, then check out our other blog posts on the topic: https://london-school-online.com/en/article/interpreting-exam-results, https://london-school-online.com/en/article/exam-results-from-starters-to-proficiency.
