Untimed practice flatters. A paper written in 3 uninterrupted hours, closed book, with a clock that does not pause, is the only version of practice that measures what an exam measures. Here is how to set one up at home, what the rules are, and what to do with the result.
Jakobus Kits, Founder·Last updated 13 September 2026
Why untimed practice misleads
Most homework is written with the book open, the phone nearby and no deadline. That measures whether your child can eventually reach an answer. An exam measures whether the answer arrives inside 3 hours, first time, alone. The two skills are different, and only one of them is marked.
Give your child past-paper questions over a weekend and most will come out right. Nothing about that afternoon resembles an exam: no clock, the textbook within reach, a stalled question picked up later. It practises the one thing a paper never tests, which is getting there eventually.
Pace. Whether the first third of the paper is eating the time the last third needs.
Recall under pressure. Whether a formula known on a Sunday is still there in the third hour.
Working. Whether the steps that carry method marks get written down while the clock moves.
You need three things and one clear morning: a room where nobody will walk in, the calculator and instruments your child uses at school, and a phone to photograph the pages afterwards. Set the paper out on a table, put a clock where it can be seen, and start.
A quiet room. One door, closed. Tell the house before it starts, not after the first interruption.
A clear table. The paper, blank pages for working, two pens, nothing else.
The calculator from school. Not a better one, never a phone. Check the batteries and the mode before the clock starts.
A phone, face down. On silent for 3 hours, then used once: to photograph the pages and send them in.
A clock your child can see. A wall clock or the timer in the exam environment, not a phone screen.
Pick a morning rather than an evening, and start at the hour the real paper starts if you can. 3 uninterrupted hours is hard to find in a school week, so most families use a Saturday or a holiday. The packet is ready within a day of payment.
The rules that make the result mean something
Three rules, and none of them is negotiable. Closed book, with no notes, no textbook and no help from anyone in the house. 3 hours from the first question to the last. The timer starts when your child taps start, and it does not pause.
"The timer starts as soon as you tap start, and does not pause." Not for a phone call, not for a snack, not for a question about question four.
"Write your answers on paper as you normally would." By hand, exactly as it will be written in the hall.
"At the end you will photograph your pages and send them in." Every page, rough working included: working that is not photographed cannot be counted.
Those are the rules the exam environment shows your child before the paper opens, and the screen adds one more: Make sure you are ready before you tap. The clock runs once. If your child leaves the room, the clock keeps running.
Closed book means closed book. No notes on the table, no formula sheet beyond the one the paper provides, no definition looked up at half time. A paper written with notes open is wrong in one direction: too kind.
Your job for 3 hours is to be dull. Do not read over a shoulder, and do not answer a question about the wording, even to say it looks fine. Working out what an awkward question wants is part of what is being measured. Sit in another room.
Marking it honestly
Marking your own child’s paper is where most home mock exams fall apart. A parent who knows what was meant gives the mark; a marking guideline gives it only for what is on the page. If you mark it yourself, mark what is written, not what your child intended to write.
Mark the page, not the intention. If a step is missing on the paper, it is missing.
Give method marks only where the method is visible . Working done on a calculator did not happen.
Look for errors carried forward. One wrong figure in line two makes every line after it wrong for an entirely right reason.
Write a reason beside every lost mark. The reason is the part you can act on; the total is not.
That last one is the hard part. A mark says how much went missing, not why, and the why is the only part anybody can act on. Sorting each lost mark into a reason — wrong method, accuracy, not written down, misread, didn’t remember — is what turns a paper into a plan. Why your child loses marks in exams sets out the five.
Exam Diagnostics ZA is a South African service that marks a full Grade 10–12 mock exam paper mark by mark and reports every lost mark, with a strategy report and a video walkthrough, within 24 hours. If you would rather not mark it yourself, that is the part it takes over: the same 3 hours at home, photographs of the pages, marks back within 1 hour and the full report within 24, by email and WhatsApp.
What to do with the result
A mark on its own changes nothing. What changes the next paper is knowing which of the lost marks had the right method behind them, because those are the ones that come back without learning anything new. Sort the losses first, then decide what to work on.
What a marked paper is telling you, and the first thing to do about it.
What the paper shows
What it usually means
What to do next
Blank or half-finished last questions
The paper ran out before the work did
Work on the order of attack and the minutes per mark
Right answers with no working
The method marks were never claimed
Write the steps down, especially when the answer is obvious
Right method, wrong arithmetic
A slip, not a gap
Build a checking routine into the last ten minutes
A value used that is not on the paper
The question was read wrongly, not answered wrongly
Slow the first reading down; underline what is given
One paper is one measurement, and it only matters if something follows it. The value sits in the second paper: the same child, weeks later, writing differently. A follow-up paper built from what the first report found is part of Mark Recovery, or R250 on its own. The sample report shows the whole thing first.
Before you start
Set the date, clear the room, charge nothing but the calculator, and tell your child the truth: this paper goes on no report card, and that is exactly why it is worth writing properly. 3 hours, closed book, one clock. The result is only as honest as the morning behind it.
Pick a Saturday that suits the family, put the phone face down, and treat the morning as the real thing.