Mocks vs Leaving Cert

Nicke011

This question is particularly to the past Leaving Certs or anyone with such experience. I am wondering what are the chances that similar questions from the Mocks come up on the actual Leaving Cert?

Do they tend to change it completely or no?

I mean like, for example, there are some predictions that there is a good chance that essay about Lady Macbeth will come up on the English LC 2014
(next bit is about Mocks 2014, if you didn't had your English exam and you don't want to know what's coming up, don't read text in the spoiler!)

and it actually did came up on the both Mocks papers (examcraft & deb), so does that mean that there are less chances for it to come up on the Leaving Cert in June?

spurious

The mocks are nothing to do with the SEC, who set the Leaving. The SEC exams have been set before the Mocks come out, so if anything re-appears on the real paper, it is a coincidence.
The people involved in drafting and setting for the SEC do not work for the Mock companies.

Nicke011

spurious wrote: »

...The SEC exams have been set before the Mocks come out...

Are you definitely sure about this?
Thanks for your response, though

spurious

Yes I am sure. The original drafts would have gone to the SEC last summer. There may be some small tweaking going on now, but most have already gone for translation.

thelad95

I think some companies possibly have someone 'in the know'. For example, our school used DEB last year for our mocks and I can remember two things in particular.
1. The question on Plath in our mocks was the same albeit worded it differently to the real thing.
2. In Economics, this question (which hadn't come up on years) appeared on both, word-perfect

'' (c) A fall in the price of a consumer product has both a substitution effect and an income effect.

(i) Explain the underlined terms.
(ii) If the price of an inferior product falls (all other things being equal) will more or less of the product be purchased? Explain your answer with reference to the substitution effect and the income effect. ''

However to answer your question in the general sense no. The above examples could also be down to coincidence more than anything else. The best thing to do after the mocks is forget about predicting and semi-guessing what will come up on the papers. It's a poisonous practice that will inevitably lead to disaster as it does for hundreds maybe thousands of students each year out of the Leaving Cert. cohort.

Cover the whole syllabus in every subject and practice (but don't rely upon) past exam questions every day. You have three-ish months after the mocks put in as much work as possible and seek plenty of advice and guidance from your teachers and you will do excellently.

spurious

I also wouldn't necessarily rule out something coming up two years in a row. I spoke to an Inspector once who was jokingly saying 'Imagine if we just put out all last year's papers again'.

Just because something came up last year, it does not rule it out coming up again.

Nicke011

I'm not saying that I will rely on predictions, I'm covering the whole syllabus, but for example in poetry it's obvious that you can't prepare for all 8 poets equally. Some of them will be better some worse prepared, so I'm just thinking about which ones will be those "better prepared".
Thanks for help guys!

thelad95

Nicke011 wrote: »

I'm not saying that I will rely on predictions, I'm covering the whole syllabus, but for example in poetry it's obvious that you can't prepare for all 8 poets equally. Some of them will be better some worse prepared, so I'm just thinking about which ones will be those "better prepared".
Thanks for help guys!

You don't need to do all eight. The syllabus states that you cover six. If you have 5 prepared, you are guaranteed one poet at least to come up. If you study 4 there is a 98.75% chance of one coming up.

rainbowtrout

thelad95 wrote: »

I think some companies possibly have someone 'in the know'. For example, our school used DEB last year for our mocks and I can remember two things in particular.
1. The question on Plath in our mocks was the same albeit worded it differently to the real thing.
2. In Economics, this question (which hadn't come up on years) appeared on both, word-perfect

'' (c) A fall in the price of a consumer product has both a substitution effect and an income effect.

(i) Explain the underlined terms.
(ii) If the price of an inferior product falls (all other things being equal) will more or less of the product be purchased? Explain your answer with reference to the substitution effect and the income effect. ''

However to answer your question in the general sense no. The above examples could also be down to coincidence more than anything else. The best thing to do after the mocks is forget about predicting and semi-guessing what will come up on the papers. It's a poisonous practice that will inevitably lead to disaster as it does for hundreds maybe thousands of students each year out of the Leaving Cert. cohort.

Cover the whole syllabus in every subject and practice (but don't rely upon) past exam questions every day. You have three-ish months after the mocks put in as much work as possible and seek plenty of advice and guidance from your teachers and you will do excellently.

I sat my LC in 1996 and on the morning of the Biology exam I was doing some last minute revision and decided to tackle an exam question. Our biology teacher had papers going years back and I pulled out an ecology question from 1983 and did it and then compared it to the answer I had done and he had corrected months earlier. A couple of hours later I opened my biology paper to see the exact same question word for word, complete with identical graph on the exam. I sat there grinning like an idiot knowing I had 50 marks in the bag before I even looked at the rest of the paper.

Huge coincidence but showing that questions do get reused from time to time. It's perfectly possible that the question on Plath on the LC was from somewhere else and the person setting the mock just happened to use the same source for their question.

randylonghorn

thelad95 wrote: »

You don't need to do all eight. The syllabus states that you cover six. If you have 5 prepared, you are guaranteed one poet at least to come up. If you study 4 there is a 98.75% chance of one coming up.

Correct.

However, unlikely as it is, some people who only do 4 will walk in to find none of them on the paper. They post on this forum every year!

The only way to be sure is to have prepared 5. You may not necessarily have prepared the fifth or even the fourth to quite the same level, but at least if you get caught you will be able to manage a decent answer.

thelad95

randylonghorn wrote: »

Correct.

However, unlikely as it is, some people who only do 4 will walk in to find none of them on the paper. They post on this forum every year!

The only way to be sure is to have prepared 5. You may not necessarily have prepared the fifth or even the fourth to quite the same level, but at least if you get caught you will be able to manage a decent answer.

Well while it is in theory 98.75% chance there are of course other factors. For example there is always one woman, and one Irish poet. In addition, there is always one 'buzz poet' that everyone expects to come up. This year it's Heaney, last two years it was Plath. If for some reason your teacher avoided the 'buzz poet' and all female poets and you narrowed down their choice even further by eliminating one of the five that your teacher chose, then you could easily end up in that nightmare scenario.

_Redzer_

We covered 5 extremely well and then did a 6th just for more options.

I was lazy and just focused on one poet and took a huge gamble. I was lucky and she came up, but I was stuck with a question that wasn't the nicest with that particular poet.

It's much better to do 4 really, really well. Options in an exam are a great thing, because otherwise you're effectively fúcked.

randylonghorn

thelad95 wrote: »

For example there is always one woman, and one Irish poet.

Here's the thing though ... that has been the pattern, you're right, but there is absolutely nothing in the syllabus that says that one female poet and one Irish poet has to come up. Nada, nothing!

One of these years ...

Though I have to admit that given the 8 poets on this year, this *probably* won't be the year.

JDOC1996

I know that the mocks have nothing to do with the SEC, but for my junior cert history exam the EXACT same essays came up as they did in the mock 4 months earlier. It was very strange indeed.

randylonghorn

So whoever set the mock paper looked at the past patterns, and made some very good guesses / predictions.

It CAN happen, no-one is saying it can't.

Just don't rely on it happening!!!!