The purpose of a mock exam…

…is the same as that of a fire alarm – it helps us notice when something needs attention.

Although sitting a mock exam is great practice for students in terms of what to expect, and allows educators to better understand the progress that students are making, its most important function is as an early warning system for summer grades.

We’re now in a position where most of this summer 2025’s GCSE and A-Level learners will have sat at least one mock exam, and educators likely have a relatively detailed data picture of the class of 2025's learning progress. But what we are looking for within that information, and on those returned mock exam papers, are indicators that tell us where to focus our teaching efforts so that any issues – knowledge-based, or otherwise – can be remedied in time for the summer testing season, so that students can achieve the grades they deserve.

What do we do when we’ve got our mock exam results?

Mocks let us assign a real-world grade value to learning, and compare that grade value to where we’d hope students will be at the point of summer testing. It’s about creating a ratio that lets us know how far we’ve still got to boost scores.

But it’s not as simple as acquiring a couple of number values. Mock exam papers can also give us a functional idea of what might be preventing learners from hitting their target grades. Especially in subjects based in the humanities, where extended writing and comprehension tasks comprise the body of the exam, the contents of these papers can give us valuable insight into how learners are approaching these exams and any external factors that might be impeding a successful exam experience.

↪️ Look for indicators of anxiety issues

If a student has been working towards their target grade throughout the year and their mock exam paper demonstrates a significant drop-off, then it’s possible some element of the exam event impacted their performance. This could be due to environmental factors – illness or distraction – but may also be due to exam anxiety.

Anxiety can significantly impact exam performance as it affects recall, confidence, and the ability to synthesise information. A great indicator is to look for incomplete or disorganised answers, messy handwriting and cross-outs: these can all indicate anxiety if they’re different from that student’s norm.

Conversely, responses in which a student has returned to an answer to add more information (writing a double line, using asterisks and arrows), may also indicate exam anxiety. They demonstrate an inability to see a response as ‘finished’ and a tendency to bring in unrelated knowledge to shore up marks.

↪️ Comparing understanding and articulation helps identify writing needs

Issues also occur when students have developed an in-class understanding of a subject that’s evident from the content of their responses, but the character of those responses doesn’t represent that understanding so well. We can discern this in overly simplistic word choices, confused or inaccurate lexical choices, an excess of spelling and grammar errors, and an observable lack of confidence in expression in their responses.

Answers that combine evident understanding with a weakness in expression may suggest reading and writing differences like dyslexia, which, as well as challenging comprehension, can compromise SPaG skills, handwriting speed, and confidence in linguistic expression. Be on the lookout for in-text dyslexia indicators too, such as letter reversals, inconsistent spellings, and phonetic spelling, i.e. ‘Wensday’ for ‘Wednesday’, ‘thort’ for ‘thought’.

↪️ Scan papers for reading-related dyslexia indicators

It’s so difficult to tell whether a student has any kind of Special Educational Need (SEN) based on the content of one mock exam paper. These conclusions need to be drawn from knowledge of the student, classwork, assessment, and your interactions together – but that said, there are some on-page indicators in a returned mock exam that can indicate dyslexia may be in play.

Look for signs of weakness in reading comprehension, such as incomplete understanding of examples, questions, and excerpts – places where answers show that questions haven’t been understood and information has been missed. Do any of these line up with signs of dyslexia or other neurodivergent differences that you might have observed in class this year?

↪️ There are also in-text indicators of ADHD to consider 

It’s similarly tricky to identify ADHD from one returned mock exam paper, but again, some elements can indicate that there’s something worth investigating. Although it’s not talked about as much, ADHD can have just as large an impact on a student’s exam skills as dyslexia can, and students with ADHD are just as entitled to access arrangements to support them during the test period.

• Students with ADHD may have overly messy handwriting – 92% of students with ADHD have weaknesses in their graphomotor skills, and there’s a high co-occurrence with dysgraphia.

• Inconsistent performance (a mix of correct and incorrect answers, even on similar types of questions) may indicate one of ADHD’s most recognised traits, fluctuating focus and attention.

• Missing out parts of questions, misinterpreting directions, or making easy mistakes can suggest impulsivity and a tendency to not check the details, both of which are associated with ADHD.

• Overly brief answers can raise the alarm too: short answers that lack depth can indicate rushing through the exam and poor time management.

You can find out more about what ADHD looks like on the page at VeryWell Mind.

↪️ Look for anything that may point to revision issues

This one’s tricky to spot, but worthwhile investigating.

Independent revision isn’t a skill we usually teach. And it’s hard – having to go over the year’s work in a largely unstructured way is daunting, and learners with reading or focus needs often find that opening a textbook alone and at home isn’t the most productive experience. Comprehension struggles impact the information taken in, there are so many distractions, and reading fatigue can cut revision sessions far shorter than they’d ideally be.

Because a huge part of the revision process is memory, look for learners who might have good knowledge of topics studied recently, but a weaker knowledge of the topics covered at the beginning of the year. This indicates that revision either isn’t happening as much as it needs to, or is happening, but in a non-functional way.

↪️ Exam-level proficiency and English as an Additional Language (EALs)

Students who come to English as an Additional Language often struggle more in exams than they do when they’re working in the classroom. Exams require a higher level of English proficiency, due to a lowered opportunity to ask for support, the inability to use in-class context clues, and the transition from in-class subject-specific language to more general academic language in the exam – which many EALs find more difficult to decipher as its meaning is often more contextually dependent.

This means we might see a lot of mock exam papers returned from EAL students where learners haven’t understood the question properly, answered what they thought the question was asking, or just struggled to reference extracts sufficiently. Look for language changes too: sometimes, when a student can’t fully express themselves in English, they’ll use a word or phrase in the language they’re most confident in as a means of communicating their ideas, and telling the examiner that there was academic discourse there, they just found it tricky to articulate in English.

And be especially on the lookout for exam grade slips in EAL students who haven’t been in English education for very long. A 2020 statistical review by the Department for Education found that 80% of learners who attend English schools for 5+ years are likely to have a skilled and fluent level of language proficiency, compared to only 40% of learners with EAL who have been in English education for 1-4 years.

↪️ Disengagement from the exam format

When a student returns a mock exam with very little written on it, this is a real cause for concern. Disengagement from the testing process usually belies a student's belief that there is either no way they can succeed at it or very little point in succeeding, both of which require immediate investigation.

Again, a prevalent cause of this failure to respond to the mock exam process may be the disengagement and feelings of hopelessness associated with unsupported dyslexia or other neurodivergent needs.

The limitations of exam paper analysis

Students can output lower than expected mock results for a variety of reasons, not all of them listed here. And you know your students best: that’s why it’s important we consider these papers within the context of the learners themselves, professional assessment, and our interactions with students as educators.

But these mock exam papers do represent a decent pre-May failsafe mechanism when it comes to spotting reading needs we may have missed, and needs being masked by one of the students in our care.

So, although this kind of analysis has its limitations, and it’s no real replacement for teacher knowledge, it’s useful to treat it as a final safety net for any unsupported areas where we may not have realised we have something to fix.

But how do we fix things?

As ever, it’s about the grades on the line: we know that after we’ve mined into the reason behind an unsatisfactory mock exam return, we’ve got to get straight to work on supporting the needs that led that student there.

It might be over four months until summer exams really kick in, but when you’re working at scale and exploring individual needs, that might not feel like you’ve got enough weeks left to get each student reading at the level they need to be.

With C-Pen Exam Reader 2,

you’ve still got time!

Text-to-speech support can give students a grade-saving comprehension boost in exams. And when they walk into the exam hall knowing they’re supported every step of the way, it can head feelings of anxiety and hopelessness off at the pass. However, traditional reading pens aren’t permitted in GCSE and A-Level examinations due to their ability to save information and connect to wireless networks, which could compromise the academic integrity of the exam process.

…That’s where C-Pen Exam Reader 2 is different: it’s got a unique zero-storage, no-Wi-Fi design that’s approved for use in GCSE and A-Level exams by JCQ!

It’s used by thousands of students every year, supporting those with dyslexia, ADHD, EAL and other things that might impact their exam performance as they tackle the exam papers that unlock their futures. All that matters is that a reading pen has been established as their Normal Way of Working (NWoW) prior to the exam – either Exam Reader 2 itself or one of C-Pen’s enhanced classroom models, C-Pen Reader 2 and C-Pen Reader 3.

And it's super-simple to arrange, too– meaning that it couldn’t be easier for your centre’s Exam Officers.

✅ JCQ-approved exam reading support

✅ No need for separate rooming

✅ No need for expensive human readers

✅ Easy to use and easy to organise

✅ Rechargeable, with a long-life battery for a full day of exams

✅ Can be used by any student, as long as a reading pen is their NWoW!

...Fancy a chance to see the magic in action?

We know that as an educator, you’re up against tighter budget constraints than ever before – so whatever reading support you choose to support your learners during summer exam season, you have to know it works, it’s reliable, and it impacts results in the way you need.

That’s why we offer schools and colleges a FREE 30-day trial of C-Pen Exam Reader 2, so that you can witness the way it empowers learners and boosts exam grades yourself. To request yours, head over to our Trials Hub at Scanning Pens to get the ball rolling – or if you’d prefer to chat with one of our education experts about the needs in your setting, get in touch with the Scanning Pens team.

📧 Drop us a line: ukinfo@scanningpens.com 

☎️ Give us a call: +44 (0) 207 976 4910