Grade Boundaries A-Level Edexcel 2025: Everything you need to know

Grade boundaries are the raw mark thresholds students need to reach for each grade in an exam series. They are not fixed in advance. Edexcel (Pearson), like every regulated exam board in England, sets them after marking is complete, based on how the cohort actually performed against the difficulty of that year's papers.

For reformed linear A-Levels, the boundaries are reported in raw marks, not UMS. That change came in with the 2017 reforms and it still trips people up. If you are looking at a paper from your older sibling's day, the numbers will not line up with the modern ones.

This guide pulls together the published June 2025 Edexcel boundaries for five of the most popular subjects, explains how the boundaries are set, and looks at what the trend lines suggest for students sitting exams in summer 2026.

A grade boundary is the minimum raw mark needed to achieve a particular grade on a particular exam paper or qualification. For a full linear A-Level, the boundaries apply to the total mark across all papers in the subject, not to each paper in isolation.

Under the reformed system, Edexcel publishes the boundaries on results day in raw marks out of the qualification's maximum. For most A-Levels that maximum is 300, although some subjects such as Economics A and Business use 335. There is no UMS conversion to worry about: The number you see is the actual mark on the paper.

Boundaries shift every year. A harder paper produces lower boundaries and an easier paper produces higher ones. The aim is that a grade A in 2025 represents the same level of achievement as a grade A in 2024, even if the marks needed are different.

Edexcel does not invent its boundaries in isolation. The exams regulator Ofqual oversees the process and applies a principle called comparable outcomes. The idea is that the proportion of students achieving each grade should stay broadly in line with previous years, unless there is strong evidence the cohort is genuinely stronger or weaker.

Senior examiners review scripts at key grade thresholds and use statistical predictions, based on the cohort's prior GCSE attainment, to anchor the boundaries. Where examiner judgement and statistics disagree, the awarding committee weighs both. For A-Levels this matters: Small shifts in boundaries can move thousands of students between grades.

This is also why boundaries differ between boards. An Edexcel A in Biology and an AQA A in Biology represent the same standard of achievement, but the raw marks needed will not be identical because the papers themselves are different.

The table below shows the published June 2025 boundaries for five popular Edexcel A-Level subjects. Marks are out of the qualification's maximum, taken directly from Pearson's June 2025 GCE grade boundaries document.

Maths stands out as the toughest of this group in percentage terms. An A* needed 258 out of 300, which is 86 per cent of the raw marks available. An A came in at 214, just over 71 per cent. The lower boundaries are also high relative to other subjects: A C required almost half of the total marks. If you are sitting Maths, you cannot lean on the idea that the boundaries will rescue a weak paper. They have generally not done so in recent years.

Biology B looks very different. The A* threshold of 217 is about 72 per cent of the raw marks, with an A at 188 (around 63 per cent). That gap reflects how the science specifications are written: Papers contain harder discrimination questions designed to spread the top end, so the top grade can be hit without scoring close to full marks.

Economics A and Business sit on the larger 335-mark scale. Economics A required 287 for an A* (around 86 per cent), making it one of the more demanding A* thresholds in proportional terms. Business asked for 250 for an A* (around 75 per cent), with an A at 231 and a C at 169.

Physics in 2025 had its A* boundary set at 227 out of 300, around 76 per cent. Lower grades fell at 199 for an A (about 66 per cent), 169 for a B, 139 for a C, 109 for a D and 80 for an E. The gap of 28 marks between A* and A is wider in absolute terms than on Biology B, reflecting Physics papers designed to stretch the top end.

The most important takeaway is that you cannot rely on the boundaries from the COVID-era series. Those years had heavily reduced thresholds because of disrupted teaching and the move back from teacher-assessed grades. The 2024 and 2025 series mark a return to something closer to the pre-pandemic baseline, and in some subjects boundaries are now at or above where they sat in 2019.

If you are sitting Edexcel A-Level Maths in 2026, working backwards from the 2025 A* threshold of 258 out of 300 is more realistic than averaging across the past five years. Build your past paper practice around that target. Aim to consistently score above the recent A* threshold on past papers under timed conditions, not just to hit it once.

For Biology B, the proportionally lower thresholds reflect papers designed to differentiate at the top. You should still aim for accuracy on the recall questions: The top grades come from converting marks on the harder six and nine markers, not from squeezing a few extra marks out of the lower-tariff content.

For Economics A and Business, watch the 335-mark scale. A few extra marks on the longer essay questions can move you up a grade, because the boundaries between grades are wider in absolute terms than on the 300-mark subjects.