Discover how grade boundaries determine your exam results - and where to check them for each exam board
Marking GCSE and A-level exams is a pretty complicated business. After all, there are thousands (sometimes hundreds of thousands) of exam papers to be checked in each subject, and the marking has to be consistent across all of them.
To help with that consistency, examiners mark your answers against a mark scheme.
So now you've got a mark. Let's say...70 out of 90 (great job, you). But that needs to be translated into your actual grade - and that's where grade boundaries come in.
| Want to check the latest grade boundaries? |
|
We've got links to the latest A-level and GCSE grade boundaries further down this page. |
Exam boards draw the lines that match marks to grades. They might decide that everything marked 70 or higher in a particular GCSE subject is worth a 9, while marks between 69 and 63 are an 8; 62 to 57 are a 7, and so on.
These would be the grade boundaries - and in this example your 70 would get you a 9. Nice. If the grade boundaries had been set one mark higher (so a 9 is given for everything marked 71 or higher) your mark would have been worth an 8.
So, grade boundaries define how your exam mark translates into a final grade. But they're not just plucked out of thin air. Let's take a look at how they're worked out.
| Jump to a section of this article: |
How are grade boundaries set?
Grade boundaries are set by exam boards, once marking is nearly complete.
Exam boards use a range of evidence including samples of marked papers from the current year and a sample from previous years. Senior examiners can then compare work that achieved the same mark and decide whether it’s comparable.
They will also have some fancy stats available such as data relating to the performance of that year group in national assessments such as GCSEs or Key Stage Two tests. These give an indication as to whether the year group might do better or worse than the year before.
The challenge for those setting grade boundaries is to make sure that a set of answers that was, say, awarded an A-level A* grade last year is still awarded an A* this year and a top A last year is still a top A this year. This is how standards remain consistent from year to year.
In practice, exam boards will generally set only the top and bottom grade boundaries in this way. In the case of A-levels, for example, grades A and E are set by exam boards based on this mixture of previous student work and statistical predictions.
Grade A* is set in a similar way, while grades B, C and D are "set arithmetically, based on the difference between the marks between grades A and E," according to the exams regulator Ofqual.
Why do grade boundaries change each year?
Despite examiners’ attempts to make every paper the same level of difficulty each year, students do find some papers harder than others. As the examiners’ job is to keep standards consistent they will need to make adjustments to grade boundaries in these situations. For example, they would reduce grade boundaries a little if this year’s paper was slightly harder than last year’s.
A change in grade boundaries does not mean it is more difficult or easier to achieve a grade than it was before. It just reflects the differences in how hard the paper was.
There is no predetermined quota of grades. Although the number of top grades awarded each year tends to be relatively stable, this is because student performance tends to be relatively stable.
Of course, the upheaval of the Covid pandemic, with the associated school closures and exam cancellations, mixed things up a bit. If you look back across grade boundaries from recent years, you'll see plenty of fluctuation.
No-one took exams in 2020 and 2021, with grades decided by teachers instead. When exams returned in 2022, the grade boundaries were intentionally set to produce overall results that were significantly higher than in pre-pandemic years. Since then, however, grade boundaries have settled down to be closer to their pre-pandemic levels.
Where and when are grade boundaries published?
GCSE and A-level grade boundaries are published on exam board websites on the same day and at roughly the same time as the exam results are released. At that point you can ask your teachers or exam office for a breakdown of your marks and see how close you were to a grade boundary.
Here are the links to the most recently released A-level and GCSE grade boundaries for each of the major exam boards.
A-level grade boundaries
GCSE grade boundaries
Should I care about grade boundaries?
Some students find it interesting to check grade boundaries from the previous year when they’ve completed an exam. Maybe they’ve used an unofficial mark scheme on The Student Room to get an idea of their mark and want to find out what grade that might be worth.
But beware: grade boundaries can change from year to year. And grade boundaries from the current year aren’t released until results day – when you’ll known your results anyway!
What can I do if I’m just under a grade boundary?
That’s frustrating, but you can have your mark reviewed. You could ask your school or college to access your script and, if you think an error has been made, your school or college can submit a review of marking.
This means that the marking will be checked and changed if an error has been made. You should bear in mind that, although a review could see your grade go up, it could see your grade go down.
However that might not be very likely in this case as you are so close to the higher grade and unlikely to lose so many marks that you drop down below the next grade boundary.
If you’re considering getting a review of marking, you’ll need to talk it over with your teacher.
