A score of 62% hides two very different candidates. One knows 62% of the paper and guessed the rest honestly. The other knows 40%, got lucky on a good number of guesses, and is confident about a few things that are simply wrong. They need completely different revision.
The Sure, Unsure and Guess ratings on Mock CSS exist to tell those two apart.
Key takeaways
- After you pick an option, three choices appear under it: Sure, Unsure, Guess. Rating is optional.
- The results screen shows how often you were right at each level.
- Sure but wrong answers are the ones to check first. They are likely misconceptions, not slips.
- Guess but right answers are luck. Do not count them as something you know.
- It works the same on CSS MPT and FPSC mocks.
How to rate an answer
During a mock, select an option. A row under the options asks "How sure are you?" with three choices:
- Sure. You know this. You could explain why the other options are wrong.
- Unsure. You lean one way but would not bet on it.
- Guess. You are picking something. Nothing in the question points you anywhere.
Be honest, because the rating is only useful if it is. Other candidates never see it, and it does not change your score. If you skip it on some questions, that is fine: the results count only the answers you rated.
It takes a second, so it does not slow you down much. If you feel it does on a timed paper, rate only the ones you are sure of or guessing on, and leave the middle unrated.
What the results show
After you submit, a card called "How sure you were" shows, for each level you used, how many answers were right. For example, "Sure: 31 of 36 right" with a percentage and a bar.
Two things matter in that card.
How you did when you were sure. If you were sure, you should be right most of the time. The card colors your "Sure" bar as a warning if you were right on fewer than 80% of those answers. That is over-confidence. The gap between how right you felt and how right you were is the thing to fix.
Whether your guesses paid off. If your "Guess" bar is at about the 25% a blind pick on four options would give, nothing surprising happened. If it is much higher, some of those right answers were things you half-knew, and some were luck.
The two callouts
Below the bars you may see up to two notes.
"Check these first." This appears when you were sure about answers that turned out wrong. It tells you how many, and says to look at them first in the review. These are the most valuable wrong answers you have. A slip happens once. A misconception comes back every time that topic appears, and you will answer it with full confidence.
"Luck is not knowledge." This appears when you guessed and were right. It tells you how many of your guesses landed. Treat those questions as unlearned. They should go on your revision list as if you had got them wrong.
Using it on FPSC
On FPSC posts a wrong answer loses 0.25 marks, which makes the ratings more useful. A Guess that was wrong cost you something, and the card tells you how often that happened. How the FPSC MCQ Test Works explains the arithmetic, and on Premium the negative-marking insights show what the penalty cost across your attempts.
On the CSS MPT there is no penalty, so a guess can only help, and the ratings are about knowing what you know rather than about the cost of being wrong. The habit still pays: How to Use Your MPT Mock Score to Find Weak Sub-Sections builds on it.
What to do next
- Rate every answer you can on your next mock.
- In the review, open the "sure but wrong" ones first and work out what you believed.
- Put the "guess but right" ones on your revision list.
- Check the Sure bar again next time. It should creep up.
The revision queue will bring back what you miss. The ratings tell you what else belongs there.
Frequently asked questions
No. You can leave it untouched on any question. The results card counts only the answers you rated, and the card does not appear if you rated none.
No. It does not change the marks you get. It only changes what the results can tell you.
No. Other candidates never see them. They are part of your own results.
On the results screen, a Sure bar at 80% or above is shown as healthy. Below that it turns to a warning color, because it points to over-confidence.