The countdown to prelims has started - but why are they so important? Our latest blog post lays out exactly why the prelims are so important and also exposes the secrets teacher's don't tell their students!

Scope is composed of medical student tutors who know all of the secrets to complete exam success. We travel to our student's homes, offer a free initial assessment and are the best valued tuition service in Edinburgh!

1. If you get low scores, lots of schools kick you off that subject.

Many schools are ultimately motivated by grades and percentages. Therefore they reserve the right to withdraw any students that are not achieving pass grades at prelims. We think this is unfair when some students have worked for almost 2 years towards a subject and are not even given the chance of sitting the exam because they had a bad day in January. That is why prelims are so important to get right! 

2. The exams are often just the last summer exams, and are always composed of old past paper questions!

Almost all prelims are composed of the June exam in that subject or small alterations of it. Equally, many of the exams are composed of past paper questions of other boards exams. Therefore, when preparing for the prelims, it is vitally important to do as many past papers as you can. Scope Tutors have access to all of the latest SQA papers as well as hundreds of past papers from examination boards across the UK. 

3. If you have a problem in May, the prelim results could count as your real results. 

The official purpose of prelims is to set expected grades for SQA so that incase a student cannot sit the exams in May and June, then the prelim results act as your actual results. So essentially, the exams in June potentially could be the results that you carry around on your CV for the rest of your life! Scary!

4. Almost everyone does better in the real exams than the prelims!

No one has a good time at prelims. Often they act as a bit of kick into action for many students, and teachers know this. So even if a student doesn't get what they want, there are still several months to turn it around! One of Scope's students last year was almost removed from the English course at her school for failed prelim results - but after 4 months of tuition with Scope she ended up with a B! 

Hopefully you found this blog post informative! Please feel free to contact the Scope Team if you have any questions about preparing for prelim exams, or if you would like to book a free assessment session with one of our lovely medical student tutors!