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Hardest A level maths board

What one?

AQA, Edexcel, OCR, OCR MEI, any other ones

Do uni's take into account what exam board u are doing?

OCR MEI....by far...there are places (apparantly) that would lower the standard A needed in maths to a B if its MEI...don't know if it is true, or for which course this could happen...but it is something I have heard many times

Reply 2

JamesPen

Edexcel is considered the easiest i think? (fortunately this is the one that i do :smile:

)

Maths tutor told me that MEI and WJEC are the hardest

Reply 3

Mr M

Study Forum Helper

This is such a tired old subject.

Firstly Edexcel, AQA, OCR et al are Awarding Bodies not Exam Boards.

Secondly the level of difficulty is exactly the same. QCDA and Ofqual combine forces to make sure this is the case.

probably ccea

From what I've seen, AQA generally tends to be the easiest. They sort of hold you hands through the questions a little more.

Edexcel, WJEC and OCR normal tend to be in the middle.

OCR MEI is generally seen as the hardest.

In reality though, the difference is minimal. By the end of the course, everyone has the same amount of Mathematical knowledge (unless you do NM in MEI). If you spend hours and hours revising for the specific method that an exam board requires, you're going to perform well for that exam board, which is why a comparison isn't exactly easy.

Reply 6

anonanon123123

I did normal Maths on Edexcel, and my Further Maths on MEI. Edexcel's approach is more of a "loads of questions of medium difficulty" whereas MEI has a "3 or 4 really hard questions" approach. If you know the material, both are easy, but I'd say a B grade candidate has a much greater chance of getting an A on Edexcel than on MEI for those reasons. There are lots more "free marks" on Edexcel, and there seem to be lots of filler questions just to pad out the paper that pretty much everyone gets right.

So, while the material is probably of the same difficulty, I think the question style and mark allocation makes Edexcel easier than MEI. I don't know about any other boards.