Christmas looks like two and a half weeks off. Take out Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year, and a typical break leaves about 11 usable days. At four focused hours a day, that is roughly 44 hours of revision before January mocks begin.
Forty-four hours is enough to move a mock grade, if you spend them on the right things. This is how to plan them.
Count the days before you plan them
School and college holiday dates vary, so start with your own. As an example, if term ends on Friday 18 December 2026 and you go back on Monday 4 January 2027, your break is 16 days.
| Days | Dates in the example | What they are for |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | Saturday 19 to Sunday 20 December | Audit and plan |
| 3 | Monday 21 to Wednesday 23 December | Repair your weakest topics |
| 3 | Thursday 24 to Saturday 26 December | Off |
| 4 | Sunday 27 to Wednesday 30 December | Timed past papers |
| 2 | Thursday 31 December to Friday 1 January | Off |
| 2 | Saturday 2 to Sunday 3 January | Fix what the papers exposed |
That is 11 working days and 5 off. If your dates are different, keep the shape: weak topics before Christmas, exam practice after it, and the last days for whatever the practice showed up.
Four hours a day is a ceiling, not a minimum. Split into two or three blocks, it leaves room for the rest of the holiday, and it is a pace you can hold for 11 days. Six hours a day until 23 December and nothing after Boxing Day is the version that fails.
Before the break: three questions for your teachers
The last week of term is your best chance to get information you cannot find at home. Ask each subject teacher:
- Which papers and topics will the mock cover? Some schools set full papers. Others leave out topics that have not been taught yet. Revising a topic that is not on the paper is the most expensive mistake you can make in a short break.
- Is it a past paper? If it is one you might find online, do not practise on it.
- When will marked mocks come back, and what will they be used for? Schools use mock results in different ways, so ask rather than assume.
Mock timing varies too. There is no national mock timetable, and our guide to when A-level mocks happen explains why some schools sit them in November or December and others in January.
Days 1 and 2: audit
List every topic on each paper you are sitting, from the specification rather than from your notes. Then mark each one:
- Green: you could answer an exam question on it now.
- Amber: you know it, but you would drop marks.
- Red: you would not know where to start.
The reds and ambers on topics the mock actually covers are your plan. Anything green gets a past paper question later, not a re-read.
Then put hours against it. With 44 hours and three subjects, that is about 14 hours each. Move hours towards the subject whose mock comes first and the one with the most red.
Days 3 to 5: repair, not re-reading
Re-reading notes feels productive and does very little. For each red topic, do something that forces you to recall it: write out a process from memory and then check it, answer two exam questions on it, or explain it out loud to someone at the kitchen table.
Our list of revision techniques that work covers retrieval practice and spacing in more detail.
Christmas Eve to Boxing Day: off, properly
Three days off is part of the plan, not a lapse in it. You will revise better on 27 December if you did not spend Christmas Day feeling guilty about not revising. Tell your family which days you are working and which you are not, and keep both promises.
Days 6 to 9: timed papers
This is where most of the marks are. Sit at least one full past paper per subject, timed and without notes, then mark it against the official mark scheme the same day.
The marking matters more than the sitting. For every mark you lose, write down why: you did not know it, you misread the question, you ran out of time, or you missed what the command word asked for. Each reason has a different fix, and the papers will tell you which one you need.
Past papers and mark schemes are free from the boards. AQA (opens in a new tab) and Pearson Edexcel (opens in a new tab) both publish them, and OCR has a past paper finder on its own site.
New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day: off
Same rule as Christmas. Two days away from the desk before the final push.
Days 10 and 11: fix, then reset
Use the last two days on whatever the papers exposed. If you kept losing marks to timing, do two more sections against the clock. If it was a topic, go back to repair mode for that topic only.
Then reset your body clock. If you have been going to bed at 2am, bring bedtime forward by an hour a night from New Year’s Day, so that a 9am mock in the first week back does not feel like a 6am one.
If you are retaking in 2027
If you are retaking as a private candidate, there may be no mock in January at all. Christmas still matters, for three reasons.
- You are halfway there. Results came out in August, and the exams run from 10 May to 22 June 2027. The Christmas break is roughly the midpoint.
- Your entry deadline is close. The exam boards’ deadline for summer 2027 entries is 21 February, and your exam centre’s own deadline is usually earlier. If you have not found a centre yet, do it before Christmas rather than after. Our page on when A-level resits are in 2027 has the full calendar.
- Set your own mock. With nobody to set one for you, sit a full timed paper in each subject between Christmas and New Year and mark it honestly. It is the only way to know where you stand before spring.
The next long break is Easter, and our Easter holiday revision plan picks up from there.
If the mock goes badly anyway
A mock is a measurement, not a verdict. What you do with the result in January matters more than the grade, and our guide to disappointing mock results sets out what to do next.
FAQs
How many hours a day should I revise over Christmas?
About four focused hours on working days is sustainable for most students, split into two or three blocks. Over a typical break with 11 working days, that comes to around 44 hours.
Should I revise on Christmas Day?
No. Take Christmas Eve to Boxing Day off, and New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day too. Planned days off make the working days more productive.
What should I revise first for January mocks?
The red and amber topics that your mock actually covers. Ask your teachers which papers and topics are being set before term ends.
Are past papers better than revision notes?
In the week or two before a mock, yes. A timed paper marked against the mark scheme shows you exactly where marks are lost, which notes cannot do.
What if I have not started revising yet?
Start with the audit. Two days of honest planning will make the other nine count for more than a fortnight of unplanned reading.
The short version
- A 16-day break gives you about 11 usable days.
- Ask your teachers what each mock covers before term ends.
- Weak topics before Christmas, timed past papers after it, marked the same day.
- Take five days off, and keep them.
- Retaking? Christmas is the halfway point, and the 21 February entry deadline is next.
Retaking next summer and not sure you are on track? Tell us about your situation and we will talk it through.