A Level results day 2024: What were this year's grade boundaries for AQA, Pearson Edexcel, OCR and more

• Grade boundaries are also released on A Level results day.
• They determine how many marks out of the total you need for each letter grade, from A* right down to E.
• Grade boundaries differ depending on your exam board.
• Students had to get more than 72-87% of total marks for an A* in this year’s most popular subject.

The difference between getting an A or a B in your A Level results can be miniscule, and many students and parents alike will be eager to find out just how close they were to scoring a higher grade.

Today, Thursday, 15 August, is A Level results day. Thousands of students across England, Wales, and Northern Ireland will be flocking to their schools and colleges to find out how they did in their final exams, with many a conditional university offer hanging in the balance.

Overall, the number of top A* grades has gone up this year, the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ) has revealed, but the pass rate in general has fallen slightly. Exam boards have also released their grade boundaries for this year now, which lay out what it took to get different grades.

But what are they this year, and how can you find out the boundaries set for each of your papers? Here’s what you need to know:

What are grade boundaries - and how are they decided?

When they are graded, A Level exam papers are given a number of marks out of the total number available. Grade boundaries are the exact amount of marks needed to achieve each individual letter grade.

They are decided separately by each different exam board every year, which for most students will usually be AQA, OCR, Pearson Edexcel, WJEC or CCEA. They are also released on results day.

The people who decide them are a panel of experts, who meet after all papers for any particular subject have been graded. This is so that how students did overall that year can be factored in, such as if they found it much harder or easier than anticipated. Exam boards say this helps to keep grades and the A Level qualification consistent year-on-year.

What were this year’s grade boundaries?

These vary by each subject, as well as by exam board. Here are a selection of this year’s grade boundaries for some of 2024’s most popular A Level subjects.

Mathematics took out the top spot this year, with more than 100 thousand entries. To get the top mark in each board’s standard advanced maths paper - an A* - you needed to score 86.3% of all possible marks for AQA; 72% for OCR; and 83.7% for Pearson Edexcel.

But to just pass those same maths papers with an E, the lowest passing grade, you’d need to get 24.3% of possible marks for AQA; 14.7% for OCR; and 18.7% for Pearson Edexcel.

To look at a paper from the second most popular subject, psychology, to get an A* you’d need 78.4% of all marks for AQA; 76.3% for OCR; and 58.9% for Pearson. To scrape by with an E, you’d need 22.2% at AQA; 27.7% at OCR; and 17.4% for Pearson.

Although the numbers can often look rather different, it’s important to remember that each exam board’s papers were different too.

The rest of AQA’s grade boundaries for each subject can be found on their dedicated webpage here.

For OCR, this page is here.

For Pearson Edexcel, here’s your page.

For WDEJ, the page is here.

And finally, for CCEA, your full grade boundaries can be found here.

What are the possible A level grades?

There are six possible passing grades you might see on your A Level results. In descending order, these are A*, A, B, C, D and E. If you see any of these listed next to your subject, then congratulations - you have achieved that A Level.

If you have not scored enough marks for at least an E, you unfortunately have not achieved that particular A Level. How this is shown on your results can differ depending on your exam board, but it will usually say something like ‘not classified’, or ‘U’ - short for unclassified.

The government has issued some advice for parents and carers supporting students as they receive their exam results on A Level results day. This can often be a tense and emotionally fraught time, especially if things don’t go as expected.You can check this advice out online here.