Mocks.ie

MaighEoAbu

Okay,
I was just wondering does anyone have any experience with them? I was looking at them and it seems a bit expensive. Is it 20 euro per exam or something or can you pay the 20 euro and do as many of the exams as you want?

Fad

I wouldnt bother with it if I were you. Seems entirely unessecary.

yourmother

I was thinking of doing it but the fact they were way over-advertising completely put me off! You can do like a free trial of short questions if you're doing a subject like business,home ec etc I tried the home ec ones and they were crap. Just my experience though

grrrrrrrrrr

ya id say just ask your friends from dif schools for their mock papers!!

they'll be free that way and im sure youll be able to get a hold of the marking schemes too if you ask!


And its all freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

spurious

Or go to http://www.examinations.ie and download real papers, real marking schemes and work away.

grrrrrrrrrr

spurious wrote: »

Or go to http://www.examinations.ie and download real papers, real marking schemes and work away.

Good pointtttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt:D

poppygirlx

For a minute there i thought they showed all the papers!
but nooo

seriouslysweet

I just looked these up after watching something online about them. No teachers running it which I find worrying and also saying you can text them in answers, sure there are no text in answers in the exam? Maybe I didn't understand him. Our teachers all correct extra work, why would we pay to have that done? I think I'm missing something maybe.

randylonghorn

seriouslysweet wrote: »

Our teachers all correct extra work, why would we pay to have that done? I think I'm missing something maybe.

Or not.

They're a business, after all, their primary goal is to make money.

seriouslysweet

I just don't get it! Our teachers gladly help us, now not all are really approachable but none would turn away work done. I don't get who would pay for this?

gaeilgegrinds1

Randylonghorn as always, spot on!

Wolfe Tone

Just do past papers for gods sake

LilMissCiara

Yeah I'd say just do past papers..

Our school is using mocks.ie for our mocks (they have a school option) and we had the Irish aural today. The CD quality was brutal! :mad: The language teachers (French and German) then decided to check their CDs (those Aurals are tomorrow) and they were of the same bad quality! :eek:

Hope our written papers are better.. Our teachers have seen them and they haven't made any complaints so fingers crossed!

seriouslysweet

Why would they bother producing them if they're going to do a shabby job? I dunno sometimes! Hopefully it'll be taken into account when they are corrected.

Leaving Cert 2013

I know someone who did the mock papers from mocks.ie and they said the exam paper was very bad, all the questions that come up every year where not on it, its a complete waste of money

Exothermic

Our French paper was done by them for the mocks. The CD for the aural was appalling quality. The paper itself was fair, nothing you wouldn't expect, but, the quality of the correcting was pretty terrible.
I'm not sure if this is how it's supposed to be done or not, but our work wasn't actually corrected at all and not a single comment was added. There was just a mark for the question beside your work. I mean, what's the point in doing the mock if you don't know where you've gone wrong. So our teacher has to actually sit down and correct all the written work. ¬.¬
Maybe they're really technical about the terms "marking" and "correcting".
They send back this awful feedback sheet for each student, it's a joke to even call it feedback. There are, I think, 3 boxes for each section of the exam. Excellent, Good and Needs Work (or something to that extent).
They just tick a box? ... Save your money and work through past exam papers.

seriouslysweet

I googled them there and they regularly go on tv3 and give tips, but none of the people in charge there have any experience of teaching etc...isn't that a wee bit odd?

spurious

Not really, it's about making money. They're certainly not on their own amidst all the other mock providers, grind 'schools' and similar outfits that are ruining Irish education.

They are not even about education, they are about playing the exam game. The fact that they churn out highly dependent learners, looking for notes and shortcuts to understanding anything rather than doing a bit of work themselves is a disgusting by-product.

seriouslysweet

Genuinely though I think the only people who would pay for this are really lazy students with too much money. We've loads of high acheivers in our family who did maybe one grind, no more generally, and none of this new-fandangled craic. If you need something explained get a grind, if you don't go through papers yourself. I just do not get why you would do a mock to get a tick-in-the-box reply. I want experts when I pay for something, maybe I'm alone there! Rant over, I hate opportunists who play on exam-fears.

spurious

Best of all, the schools really have no come back once you have the money from them. OK, your papers might be crap and they might not use you again next year, but who cares if you already have the dosh?

spurious

I wouldn't be booking a holiday on the number of orders they'll get next year.
Once bitten, etc..

PictureFrame

<snip>
24.95 for a Single mock paper! It's ridiculous money to be honest!. I was thinking of using them next year for a subject I am taking outside of school (Economics), I was planning on sitting my mock in February and asking my Business teacher to correct it, and then to sit another mock in April with this company to see if I have improved, however from feedback I have recieved from countless students, I don't think this will be the case.. There is an old Economics teacher in my school who will hopefully correct a second mock paper for me next year instead! :P..

rainbowtrout

PictureFrame wrote: »

<snip>
24.95 for a Single mock paper! It's ridiculous money to be honest!. I was thinking of using them next year for a subject I am taking outside of school (Economics), I was planning on sitting my mock in February and asking my Business teacher to correct it, and then to sit another mock in April with this company to see if I have improved, however from feedback I have recieved from countless students, I don't think this will be the case.. There is an old Economics teacher in my school who will hopefully correct a second mock paper for me next year instead! :P..

When the school is ordering mock papers wherever they get them (DEB or Examcraft), ask them to order an economics one for you and request for it to be sent away to be corrected. If you're willing to pay for this service then I can't see a problem.

Dav

Folks, I've had some contact from the people on Mocks.ie who want to address some of the issues raised on this thread and correct some mis-information:

We have just come across a number of posts in relation to mocks.ie, and I would like to take this opportunity to respond to some of the other posts below.

I would like to clarify that there are two sides to mocks.ie’s business:

1. Providing mock exam and corrections papers for schools similar to two other mock exam companies, this was our first year entering this space.
2. Online service for students only, with a range of services including correction and detailed personalised feedback, oral exams, aural exams, revision notes, mcqs (revison quiz), career guidance.

1. Providing mocks for schools

It would seem from one of the posts that a school purchased mocks.ie’s exam papers and correction service this year. Unfortunately, a small number of schools obtained a CD whereby the sound quality was not as clear as it should be, we had outsourced the original recording. Due to problems in our Quality Assurance system these poor quality CD's were distributed to schools, once we were made aware of the poor sound quality and we went to every effort to rectify the situation by re-recording and redistributing the CDs, however, the redistribution was obviously too late for the school in question. On the basis of the error, we did not charge any school for the inferior CDs and all schools will be given sample CDs next year. The issues with our Quality Assurance system have now been rectified and should no longer be an issue.

Our corrections service for schools cost €6.00 / €7.00 depending on the cycle, this correction comprises the teacher correcting the papers giving marks per question and an overall mark for your paper. Your teacher gets an overall class assessment feedback form also. Unlike, the other companies, we offered each student a report card which gave them a tick the box indicator as to why they lost marks, we are the only mock exam company providing this facility. This is not the “feedback service” offered on our student website.

This was our first year entering the market providing mock exams for schools, and to date we have received very positive feedback from teachers, parents and students, in addition to driving the cost of the mock exams down for all as we are more affordable than both our competitors. We also offered every student a €10 voucher to use our online services for students, where we had a massive take up.

Mocks.ie online service

This service is our online service and is separate from the schools service outlined above in point 1.

Correction and Feedback Service:

The correction and feedback service involves students taking exams at home, sending them to us by email or post. We send the exams to our teachers who are all qualified state examiners. They correct the exam giving marks per question and they also type out a detailed report card outlining to students where they lost marks and why and suggest improvements (where relevant). There is a turnaround time of 7 days and students view their report card online. The cost of this service starts at €13.95.

We have received extremely positive reactions to this service and students’ results have actually improved as a result of using this service and taking on board the feedback.

Below are a few of our testimonials

“My daughter has just completed a gold package, and in fairness the feedback she got gave her a great insight as to why she lost marks, overall a very worthwhile exercise” – Clare, Castlebar, Co. Mayo

“I have found the website and the overall service invaluable. As an example Sally regularly gets very good results in Spanish exams. However I am aware that very often the school concentrate on the written rather than the oral and aural aspect. Her poor results in the oral just go to prove that. So it highlights problem areas in time.It is a brilliant service and I am very happy with everything. In particular the speedy response I have received to any queries.

Thanks very much for everything.

Cheryl Woods– Mother – Dublin”

“Dear Ailish,

You may not remember me but my name is Banba and I would like to thank you and the examination service for making me feel much more comfortable throughout my junior certificate examinations.I finished my exams last week and I felt much better doing them thanks to the practice on mocks.ie .Thanks again and I hope you have a wonderful summer!

Regards,

Banba Fitzgerald”

Hi there,

sorry for taking so long to get back to you guys. yeah I did well in my English Leaving Certificate exam, I ended up getting a B1 in the end after taking on board the last report card I got from the mocks.ie teacher. I needed the B1 to get the points to get into Pharmacy in Trinity - so I am delighted. So I suppose I should say thanks a million!! :-) - Ciara, Mayo

MCQs- Multiple Choice Questions (Revision Quizzes)

In relation to the MCQs, we were made aware that there a number of incorrect answering showing, this was a programming error and all MCQs are being reviewed and will be offered for free for a significant period next year.

Aurals

We do not sell CD's to individual students , we offer a service where students can test themselves on the Aural parts of language subjects online and get their result immediately. This has been very successful for us and our iPhone app which offers this for free has been downloaded over 18,000 times.

Revision Notes

Our prices start from only €1.95 for revision notes, it is our aim to make education more affordable and accessible for all, to help students reach their maximum potential.

Teachers Role in mocks.ie

There seems to be a bit of confusion in relation to the level of involvement teachers have within the company, mocks.ie is a service which facilitates the correction of exams both written and oral by teachers amongst other automised services. All our services have been devised with the help of a large network of teachers. We have over 150 teachers throughout the country correcting papers , providing us with information and helping us provide an excellent service for students.

All our papers are set by teachers, all our papers are corrected by teachers and our correction and feedback is carried out by highly qualified teachers, our orals are carried out by teachers.

As part of our role last year with Ireland AM we provided information for students, the programme is aired at 7 AM in the morning, and unfortunately our teachers weren't in a position to represent us during the year as they had work constraints, however, the information imparted was provided to us by our teachers. In addition to this in the weeks of the Leaving Cert our teachers were available to appear on Ireland AM to provide students with excellent hints and tips before their exams.

I hope this addresses any issues raised in relation to mocks.ie, however, if not I would be delighted to answer any questions you many have. If you could email me at info@mocks.ie

To give them their dues, the lady from Mocks.ie who I spoke with wasn't trying to get rid of this thread or avoid that they had some slip ups with some schools and wanted to let people know that they have made every effort to ensure that these issues don't crop up again. It's not every company is willing to put it's hand up when it's made a mistake, so I'm happy to post this clarification for them and would be keen to see how they get on with next year's exams.

rainbowtrout

To be honest Dav, I understand why you posted this but I can't see the point. It's just marketing waffle from the company and reads like an advert.



"we offered each student a report card which gave them a tick the box indicator as to why they lost marks"

Tick the box report cards do not offer students an insight into why they lost marks. They tell a student if they were good, bad or average. Any monkey can tick a box. Feedback is written, it's personal to the student. This in my opinion is not additional value. Any student can read their mark and know if they did well or not. To be promoting this as an unique selling point is laughable.


We send the exams to our teachers who are all qualified state examiners.

Could they define what a qualified state examiner is exactly? I've spent years correcting state exams, I didn't gain a qualification to do so. There's no such thing as a qualified state examiner. I've also corrected mocks and in my experience most of the people who correct mocks are early on in their careers, not long out of college and need the money more than anything else. The money is crap for the other two companies and I'd be very surprised if it was any better with mocks.ie. I wonder would they confirm their rates on here? They state their starting price for individual exam corrections is €13.95. What portion of that is going to the teacher correcting the work ? It is taxed of course, so there is no way a teacher is coming out with anything like €13.95 per paper.

Why is there a need to emphasise that correction and feedback are carried out by highly qualified teachers? You're either qualified or you're not. Do mocks.ie only employ people with a Masters in their subject, 20 years experience and 10 years of correcting for the state examinations commission?

I'm not convinced.