Mock exams exist to rehearse the real thing. As more final exams move on screen, a paper-only mock rehearses the wrong conditions. Students meet the on-screen tools, the timer and the lockdown environment for the first time on exam day.
Digital mocks fix that, and they bring practical benefits too: no printing, no lost scripts, faster marking and clearer data. But moving a whole year group on screen takes planning. This guide walks through how to do it, from the first decisions to the results conversation.
Before You Start: Three Decisions For Successful Digital Mocks
1. What Are the Mocks For?
Be clear on the purpose before choosing tools. If the aim is to rehearse on-screen final exams, such as IB eAssessment, students need conditions that mirror those exams as closely as possible. If the aim is mainly faster marking and better data, you have more flexibility. Most schools want both, and that shapes everything that follows.
2. Which Subjects and Students Go Digital?
You don't have to move everything at once. Some subjects suit the screen well, while others rely on extended handwritten working or drawn diagrams. Look for a platform that lets students upload handwritten work, or that supports paper exams marked on screen, so a subject doesn't have to choose one or the other.
3. What Level of Security Does Each Exam Need?
Match the delivery mode to the stakes.
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Delivery mode |
Security |
Best for |
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Open browser |
Low |
Formative checks and practice questions |
|
Browser with security |
Medium |
Class tests where full screen and leave alerts are enough |
|
Lockdown application |
High |
Mock exams under full exam conditions |
For mocks, the lockdown application is usually the right choice. It's also the mode your IT team will want to understand first, so bring them in early.
How to Implement Digital Mock Exams, Step by Step
Step 1: Audit Devices and Connectivity
List the devices students will sit the exam on, whether school-owned or their own. Check that your chosen platform supports all of them. Then test the network in the rooms you plan to use, at the scale you plan to use it. Thirty students downloading an exam at once is a different load from one class browsing.
Ask how the platform handles a dropped connection. In AssessPrep's lockdown app, for example, students need internet to download and submit the exam. If the connection drops in between, they can keep working and their answers are saved securely on the device.
Step 2: Involve IT Early
IT teams often have questions about installing a lockdown app on student devices. Share how it works before the pilot, not the week of the mocks. A good lockdown app closes other applications, opens only the assessment, and doesn't collect information from the device.
Step 3: Set Up Accommodations Once
Collect access arrangements, such as extra time, before you build any exams. In a good platform you set these once per student and they apply to every assessment automatically. That removes the risk of a student missing their extra time because it wasn't entered for one paper.
Step 4: Build or Adapt the Papers
Decide whether teachers will write papers from scratch, adapt existing ones, or draw on a question bank. Store finished papers in a shared school library so they can be reused and improved next year.
Check that each paper has the tools the subject needs, such as a calculator, graphing tools, a maths editor or attached resources like a formula booklet.
Step 5: Pilot with One Department
Start small. Pick a department with a willing lead and run a low-stakes digital test before the mocks. Use it to find the practical problems: login issues, unfamiliar tools, room layouts, charging points. Fix them, then widen the rollout.
Step 6: Let Students Practise First
Students shouldn't meet the exam environment for the first time in the mock. Run a short practice assessment in the same mode so they can install the app, sign in, and try the highlighter, notepad and calculator with nothing at stake.
Step 7: Brief Your Invigilators
On-screen invigilation looks different. Walk invigilators through the live dashboard before exam day. They should know how to check attendance, add extra time for one student or the whole room, pause and resume, message students, and read the log that shows when anyone left the exam.
Step 8: Run the Mocks
Open the exam at a fixed start time so no one starts early. Keep a short contingency plan to hand: spare devices, a named technical contact, and a clear rule for what happens if a student's device fails.
Step 9: Mark and Moderate
On-screen marking puts each response next to the mark scheme, which makes moderation easier to organise. If your platform offers AI-suggested marks, decide in advance where you'll use them. Many departments start with short-answer questions and keep extended writing for full teacher marking. Either way, the teacher reviews every suggestion and sets the final mark.
Step 10: Feed Back and Act on the Data
Publish results with question-level feedback so students can see exactly where they lost marks. Then use the analytics to look across the cohort. Which questions did most students miss? Which standards need reteaching before the real exams?
Common Online Testing Pitfalls to Avoid
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Going whole-school in one go. A single department pilot surfaces problems while they're still small.
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Skipping the practice run. If the mock is the first time students see the tools, you're testing the software as much as the students.
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Managing accommodations by hand. Entering extra time paper by paper is where mistakes happen.
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Leaving IT until the last minute. Device and network questions take time to answer properly.
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Running two systems. If digital results don't reach your gradebook, someone ends up copying marks across by hand.
If you're still choosing a platform, our guide to what e-assessment software is includes a checklist of questions to ask.
How AssessPrep Supports Digitalising Mock Exams
AssessPrep is Faria Education Group's online assessment platform, used by IB and international schools to run everything from quick checks to full mock exams.
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Build: 20+ question types, a question bank for MYP and DP, a shared school library, and AI question generation that teachers review and edit.
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Deliver: Lockdown mode on Mac, Windows, iPad and Chromebook, with a calculator, graphing tools, maths editor, timer and multilingual support. Paper mode prints a unique QR code for each student so scripts can be scanned back in and marked on screen.
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Invigilate: A live dashboard for attendance, extra time, pause and resume, messaging and focus-loss logs.
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Grade and analyse: On-screen marking with AI-suggested marks the teacher always reviews, plus results by student, question and standard.
For ManageBac+ schools, classes sync automatically, students and teachers use one login, and grades flow back to the ManageBac+ gradebook. That means no separate roster to build before the mocks and no marks to copy across afterwards.
Preparing IB students specifically? Our guide on how to prepare students for IB eAssessment covers the on-screen tools they'll meet on exam day.
Frequently Asked Questions
How Long Does It Take to Move Mock Exams on Screen?
It depends on the size of the rollout. A single-department pilot can run within a term. A whole-school move usually works best across a full academic year, with a pilot before the first mock season.
Can Students Sit Digital Mocks on Their Own Devices?
Yes, if your platform supports the devices they have. Students install the lockdown app once, and it only opens the assessment while the exam is running.
What If a Student Submits by Mistake?
In AssessPrep, the teacher can reset the submission so the student can continue.
Can Some Students Sit the Mock in a Separate Room?
Yes. Named invigilators can supervise students elsewhere, adjust their accommodations live, and teachers can answer questions by chat from another room.
Do Digital Mocks Work for Subjects with Handwritten Answers?
They can. Students can upload photos of handwritten working against each question, or you can run the paper in paper mode and mark the scanned scripts on screen.
See AssessPrep in Action
AssessPrep gives you everything you need to run digital mocks, from building the papers to publishing results in ManageBac+. Book a demo to see how it could work for your next mock season.
