What exactly is a mock turtle?

Some form of tortoise made of papier mache?

Sorry, my mind is still a bit fragged from this week. Yes, the link says it all (badly)-this was mock week.

Weeeeeeell, not really.

More like mock weekend. Workshops were cancelled.

Weeeeeeell, not really, we still had one.

On Tuesday-slap bang in the middle of our revision period. About as irritating as could be. You spend the morning doing the prep, travel there and back and lose effectively one days prep for the exams. To balance this, one (yes, a whole one) of the questions in the mock will be about the subject of the workshop. Maybe-if, and it's about 25% likely the exam question is about income tax, then we are screwed because we didn't cover that in the workshop. However, if we get capital gains tax, inheritance tax or corporation tax then we would have had about a little extra coaching. Worth a gamble? Yep, guess so-a 75% bet, they come up 9 times out of 10, don't they?

I was (regular readers will know this) expecting a low turn out-in fact I was expecting below 50%. What do I know? In fact, there was almost complete turn out. The only two missing were two young women from my group (who no doubt having had the benefit of my wisdom and teaching throughout the course thought that they didn't need any extra help **coughing fit and choking on ego**)

The session was very good and could (75% chance) be really helpful. The funny thing is that as we approach the end of sessions with this one particular tutor (who as you will remember was (almost) universally loathed and despised), there is actually a sense of loss about being her being taken away. Yes, she has an old fashioned and slightly abrasive way to teach BUT what she has taught has sunk in and her ways have forced a lot of students to work harder-if only to avoid being embarassed by her questions.
With hand on heart, I have to say that I haven't minded her at all, we have had a 'frank exchange of opinions' once or twice (some I won, some I lost) but her knowledge is sound and it may be fair to say that she has warmed to us slightly. But to anybody who claims that they will miss her, I just ask the obvious question,

" so if she offered to replace X (a tutor, any tutor) for the rest of the course you'd be happy?"

Funny how that never seems to get the same sort of positive answer...

Anyhow-can't put it off any longer. The Mocks
As I remarked before, I have a terrible record in mocks of any sort. The first exam was Thurday afternoon-Business Law and practice. My worst subject. My only hope was to get a good revenue question and hope to steal some marks from my ability to manipulate sums.

I arrived fairly early and got a prime seat next to a window at the back (plenty of room to spread out and fresh air-marvellous). For the record (and my own personal amusement) I put only a pen and ruler out on my desk. EVERY other student had at least 1 Ring binder, 3 textbooks, their notes and assorted writing implements (giving them no writing room, unless they leant on one of their books).

The looks I was getting were brilliant. I soooo wanted someone to say, 'you realise this is an open note exam?' So I could say, 'nah, Ive learnt it off by heart-it was so easy...' and really screw up their minds. Big shame-no one did. Life can be so cruel-but maybe not as cruel as me!

As I suspected, I had had a bad nights sleep and was awake purely down to the combined power of fear, adrenaline and Pro Plus. Then comes the moment.

" YOU MAY NOW TURN YOUR PAPERS OVER AND START"

And I'm off. I decided to do the multiple choice questions last-that way, if I'm struggling for time, I can guess and get at least some results. If I were to do the longer prose questions last then this is not an option.

I start off with revenue. Wahoooooo, its capital gains tax and inheritance tax!!!Not only that but it's in a simiar form to the question we had on Tueday.

Double Wahoooooo!!

By this stage, my notes have appeared on my desk. I wanted to do each exam purely from my own typed notes and not to rely on the textbook at all. I got pretty close, not perfect but close. I finished the questions with about a minute to spare and felt pretty good. With a pass mark of 50% this should be a comfortable pass. I would like to think it was closer to 70 or 75 (although years of the OU do give you a rather inflated view of the marks you should get...)

Chatting afterwards to class mates reveal a few things. Most haven't finished. The problem-too many notes. I am willing to bet that people had 4 (almost identical) sets of notes for some subjects. They had their I-tutorial notes, their textbook notes, their workshop notes and any notes from pre or post workshop tasks. I saw people who had 2 thick A4 ringbinders full of notes (sitting about 6 inches deep)-and their textbooks. My notes were less than 2cm thick and were only single sided-without being too smug, it's a hell of a lot easier to manipulate that lot at speed. Plus I spent my revision time reordering them (thank heavens for cut 'n' paste!) and not having to rewrite them.

However, my 'success' in that exam came at a price. I got complacent and did almost no study that night or next morning. At 10 am we had civil litigation and I struggled a tad. Open note exams test not your memory but your understanding. Although I feel that I scraped a pass a lot of what I wrote was not terribly sophisticated. (I've already made a note to reorder those notes on my 'to do' list-which is starting to get a long as my notes...).

We then got a whole 2 hours off to recharge, rest, eat and go back to the exam hall for Property law and practice, which should have been my best exam.

And it wasn't...nowhere near. It was good to see the limits of my ignorance and impracticability but that's the only positive I can take. I finished with about 15 minutes to spare and that's way too much so I obviously missed a ton of stuff. I still feel that my basic understanding and good work with the notes would get me a pass though.

Except

I was told by two different classmates after the exam that the College are very severe on the marking of mocks (to stop complacency maybe?) and approximately 80% of students fail. This could be an urban myth but in truth the mocks were not very demanding, the questions asked were pretty obvious and basic and should have been within everyones ability to complete. With this in mind, I've had to review slightly. I would hope that the business was still a pass but the other two. Well, let's just say that it's good to go with the crowd...

That night I was so shattered that I had to ignore the offer of a night out with a spot of clubbing (now that IS tired!) and in fact went to bed at about 8:30. ROCK N ROLL!

Next week, I have my advocacy mock. Just me, an opponent and a case to win. I spent a few hours in prep for it today. It is so long since I did advocacy, Ive forgotten all the 'correct' things to say at the right time (think obscure traditional religious services and their litany). At this rate, I may end up saying 'amen' at an inadvertant time...

Finally, thanks to the people who wrote to me and supported me when I had a downer last week. It's passed for the moment (but be prepared for it to resurface the last week of term-two proper assessments-both closed notes)

For S, I too am 42 (acting 19 when near a dance floor, acting 63 the day after). I don't have a training contract. My only ambition is to work for the CPS. I have their application form sitting on the PC, it has to be submitted by Dec 1st. If that falls through then I may make a few tentative applications to get a TC with firms that do a lot of criminal law-but in truth my hearts not really in it. I love the idea of working for the CPS-so if they reject me(which is extremely possible since they will get over a thousand applications for 25 places) then I will try to get in an entry level position and work my way up (or probably sideways)