Hi,

Any experience of results of mock tests and how much of an indicator they are for the actual thing?

My son has done 3 mock tests now and in the last two was 4% (4th out of 100) /11% (two papers) and 2% (2nd out of 86)/17%.

I know that no one knows who will sit the 11+ for Reading School and who will go on to apply, but with results like this is it your view that we could feel somewhat confident about his chance of getting a place?

Thanks in advance

Lisa

Hi lisabevan,

Mocks are good for familiarisation with a test environment, and for picking up on areas of weakness. However, since the cohort sitting the mock is very different from that sitting the 11+ test itself, as is the test, you can’t take anything for granted. The mock results are encouraging but over confidence is not your friend. It is easy to be thrown by an unexpectedly tricky question on the day, or indeed, just have a bad day.

HTH
PS

The cohort is far too small to give you much of an idea.



Mocks help in lots of ways but you should not rely on them score wise.

Anything can happen and most of your competition was not in the mock. DG

Hi lisabeva,

That's pretty consistent performance and is a good indicator of how well prepared he is.Being able to maintain this is key, there is a bit of a luck factor I believe in I.e everything coming together on the day.

Goodluck.

Hi Lisa,

Would be great to know how he scored in the real exam ?

The OP hasn't visited the forum since 2019, so you probably won't get an answer I'm afraid.

You might be right , any others that may have any recent experience with Mocks vs real exam results for Berkshire (CEM) would be good to know.

you just can’t tell. mocks are usually mostly sat by internal candidates (eg this forums organisers or other mock providers like SD or MR or AE). so if 40 students sit it, probably 35 of them will have been taught the material in the “mock” and the sample questions in the tutorials may be exactly the same as the ones im the mock. If all 40 are super bright and super prepped, there will still be ome who comes “last”. If all 40 are a bit dingy and ill prepared, there will still be a “first place”.
So its main benefit is to get them used
to sitting in an exam hall. On first reading I thought you meant your child was in the bottom 4% not the top. Let the child have a break so he doesn’t peak then get bored and have a score drop by the time the exam comes around. he sounds like he’s doing well but with superselectives there is no such thing as a guarantee. keeping him positive is far more important than overanalysing scores at this stage.
Good luck to him (and you!)

In my humble opinion, Mock test do give u a decent idea of how the child will perform in the actual exam.
Mocks are pretty expensive thus given "mostly" by serious candidates or kids of parents with deep pockets
I would suggest sitting in Mocks not just by one provider but multiple different ones. Eg . Few from your coaching institute (if u have one) , but also from few others which are popular and known to have good cohort size Eg Suzan Daughtery or SuttonParent forum mocks.
If the child is performing consistently and remains in the top 1/3rd of the Cohort then keep doing what you are doing without creating additional stress in this last month of preparation

Cheers

P.S: 4 out of 100+ consistently is an amazing performance, so you're definitely on right track . If i would have been in your shoe, I will start exploring the bus routes to my desired school . Good luck