The 40-minute mock review template
Most learners spend 10 minutes reviewing a 60-minute paper. This template finds the real leaks.
The paper is the diagnosis, not the treatment
A mock score tells you where you stand; only a review tells you why. Learners who review for 40 minutes improve roughly twice as fast as learners who take twice as many mocks with no review — because the same three leaks repeat until named.
Schedule the review within 24 hours. After that, you no longer remember why you chose option B, and the review degrades into re-solving.
Sort every error into four buckets
Concept gap (you did not know it), method gap (you knew it but solved it wrong), decision error (wrong guess, panic skip, time trap), and silly error (misread, miscalculation). Tally the buckets across the paper before reading a single solution.
The tally dictates next week: concept gaps mean theory, method gaps mean drills, decision errors mean exam-mode practice, silly errors mean a pre-submit checklist. No tally, no plan.
Re-solve, don't re-read
For every lost mark, cover the solution and solve again from scratch. Reading a solution feels like learning; only re-solving proves it. Log each item in an error notebook with the bucket, the correct method in one line, and a retry date seven days out.
What to do this week
Review your last mock with the four buckets and the 40-minute timer. If decision errors are your biggest bucket, your problem is not knowledge — it is exam temperament, and timed simulations are the cure.
Practise it
Reading is not training
Every idea above is a drill inside UNLOCK — timed questions, instant solutions, and XP for doing it daily.
Start practising freeKeep reading
Related notes
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Timers only help if they train a decision rule. Here is the three-step rule we teach for a 30-second clock.
A decision tree for guessing under negative marking
Two options eliminated is not the same as three. A simple tree that keeps expected marks positive.
Twelve speed-maths shortcuts worth memorising
Percentage change, successive discounts and ratio splitting — the shortcuts that save the most seconds.