Mock exam "cheating"???

[Badbadbunny]

DS has just finished his end of year 10 "mocks". In virtually all subjects, the exam was either the "sample paper" for the new 9-1 course, or the Summer 2016 paper from the AQA website.

DS revised "properly" for the exams using the text books, revision guides and revising his work done in the past couple of years. He did it the way he'll be doing it for the proper external exams, so good practice for the real thing.

He says that a lot of his classmates had printed off and learned the mark schemes from the AQA "assuming" the exam would be either the sample paper or the 2016 paper so didn't revise anything they didn't expect to be on the paper. It's one thing knowing that there'll be a certain question on a particular topic, but actually having access to the official mark scheme is going too far.

DS is (rightly in my opinion) quite annoyed that they've effectively "cheated" and will no doubt get good results - better than those who didn't "cheat", so it makes the whole process unreliable and unfair.

Surely this can't be the right way of doing it, can it? Don't the schools/teachers realise that the sample/past papers and mark schemes are so freely available on the internet? I can't believe the school just glibly print them off the internet to use. Surely the schools/teachers should at least make their own by randomly taking questions off different past papers or a mix of past and sample papers?

[Hulababy]

But they are the only sample/past paper options available to the children at the moment? I have encouraged Dd to use them.

As it happens, so far anyway as have a day to go, none of the year 10 exams have been these same papers.

I think a school would be daft to use the only published sample as their mock personally. It's obvious children will use them.

[Hulababy]

I'd be very surprised at teachers not knowing they were available. But by using the only ones there they are saving themselves time and effort, but then you are highly likely to get this scenario. It is the school who have made the error imo.
The children themselves took a risk and no, it won't benefit them if all they've done is memorise the answer paper. But it's not cheating when many teachers actually advise using past papers as a legitimate revision technique.

[CrowyMcCrowFace]

I've just written our y10 English language & literature papers by pasting different anthology texts & different questions into a pdf of the Sam, so it looks like the real thing. Took me 2 days.

Last year (old spec) I used the previous January's secured paper & half the year had accessed it via unscrupulous tutors - only takes one exam officer /teacher in charge of IGCSE to download it & make it available, say by using with their y11s, & it's going to be out there.

Creating your own paper is a PITA (& means teachers marking don't have a proper MS) but it's the only way to avoid this happening.

[mumsneedwine]

Exam boards have provided sample papers for new exams so I am really surprised schools have not used them for year 10. Yes past papers are vital - except for this poor Year group who are sitting unknown exams with unknown grade boundaries and unknown mark schemes. I am a teacher and a parent of year 10 & I would quite happily do damage to the idiot who decided to mark science like it was an English exam.

[CrowyMcCrowFace]

Well, the issue there is that SAM papers are compromised by being available online.

Actually, for year 10s facing a scary new paper I think there's an argument for going easy on them. I've told our cohort that the choice of non fiction texts for English language is down to five, not ten. For literature it's 3 poems, not 15.

I want to analyse their exam technique at this point, not out face them & set them up to fail.

What they can't be allowed to do is parrot a MS they have off by heart. It's not preparing them for the exam next year, & it won't work for them anyway in my subject. The MS isn't a model set of answers - it's bullet points to guide the examiner.

Those last year who had had access to the paper & MS did crashingly badly, as their essays simply didn't make sense.

[Rosieposy4]

Very lazy of the school, there are papers on the non accessible part of AQA, or you can make your own by blending.
I find it intensely irritating to mark papers where the kids have memorised the mark scheme, they don't really learn anything. I do make them do lots of past questions but that is only valuable if they are actually thinking about the answers rather than just learning a script. You can always tell as the m/s answers are much briefer than your average kids, also they sometimes muddle the sequence so it makes no sense at all, or they write down points 1 and 3 for a two marker but 3 is dependent on the statement made in point 2. Often at this point when you are going through their papers with them they get annoyed because you gave them no credit, then they let slip their little "secret"
Your ds will be annoyed now, not unreasonably but he has the better start for next year.

[Badbadbunny]

Update: Two of the tests are going to be done again as the teachers have (finally) realised that a lot of the kids had memorised the mark scheme given a remarkably large number of kids getting unexpectedly high marks. I think the penny has dropped!