A-Level Maths · AQA, Edexcel & OCR
Here are the marks you needed for each grade in the June 2026 A-level maths exams, for all the main boards. Below the tables is the part most pages leave out: how these numbers are decided, why they move every year, and how to work out your own boundaries when only two of them are really chosen.
These are raw marks — your actual total across all your papers, not a converted score. Everything is out of 300 except OCR MEI, which is out of 275. Published by the boards on results day, Thursday 13 August 2026.
| Board | A* | A | B | C | D | E |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AQA 7357 | 260 | 219 | 182 | 145 | 108 | 72 |
| Edexcel 9MA0 | 254 | 210 | 173 | 136 | 100 | 64 |
| OCR A H240 | 250 | 208 | 172 | 136 | 100 | 65 |
| OCR MEI H640 | 223 | 187 | 155 | 123 | 92 | 61 |
AQA asked for the most marks this year and OCR MEI the fewest, but that does not mean one exam was easier. More on why further down.
There is no A* at AS, and the totals differ by board — the max mark is shown under each one.
| Board | A | B | C | D | E |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AQA 7356 /160 | 121 | 108 | 95 | 83 | 71 |
| Edexcel 8MA0 /160 | 113 | 99 | 85 | 71 | 58 |
| OCR A H230 /150 | 109 | 96 | 83 | 71 | 59 |
| OCR MEI H630 /140 | 110 | 99 | 88 | 77 | 66 |
Before you read anything off a table, check you are looking at the right row. Several boards run more than one maths A-level, and the boundaries are different. The code is printed on your statement of results, next to the subject name.
| Code on your slip | What it is | Structure |
|---|---|---|
| 7357 | AQA A-level Mathematics | 3 papers × 100 marks = 300 |
| 9MA0 | Pearson Edexcel A-level Mathematics | 3 papers × 100 marks = 300 |
| H240 | OCR A-level Mathematics A | 3 papers × 100 marks = 300 |
| H640 | OCR A-level Mathematics B (MEI) | Marked out of 275, not 300 |
| 9FM0 | Edexcel A-level Further Mathematics | 300, but the boundary depends on your optional papers |
| 7367 | AQA A-level Further Mathematics | 300, with a different boundary for each booklet pair |
OCR runs two completely different maths A-levels
H240 (Maths A) and H640 (Maths B, MEI) are separate qualifications with separate papers, a different total mark and different boundaries. Reading the wrong row is the most common mistake people make on results day. Check the code, not just the word “OCR”.
Almost everyone assumes all six boundaries are decided the same way. They are not. Here is the part that is genuinely useful to know:
The thing nobody tells you
Only two boundaries are actually judged by examiners: A and E. The grades in between — B, C and D — are not judged at all. They are worked out by splitting the gap between A and E into four equal steps.
Scroll the diagram sideways.
This is not a theory. It is written in AQA’s own guide to standard setting, which says the intermediate boundaries are calculated by dividing the gap between A and E into equal steps, with any remainder added from the top grade downwards.
We checked it against the published figures for AQA, Edexcel and OCR across every series from 2019 to 2026, and then against all ten of Edexcel’s Further Maths option routes. In twenty-eight separate cases the rule was never more than one mark out, and that one mark is just rounding.
How to work out B, C and D yourself
A committee of senior examiners meets after all the marking is done. They are given two things:
A* is different again. On the current linear A-levels it is set statistically, not by reading scripts.
There is no quota
A common worry is that only a fixed number of students can get an A, so you are competing against your classmates. That is not how it works. The statistical prediction is a guide, not a cap, and if a cohort genuinely performs better the results can go up. What the system protects against is a grade meaning something different from one year to the next.
The boundaries move because the papers are never exactly equally hard. Boards cannot write three papers in 2026 that are precisely as demanding as the three in 2025, so instead of pretending they can, they adjust the boundary to match.
Read it the right way round
The clearest example in this subject is 2019. A-level maths boundaries dropped sharply from 2018, by enough that Ofqual opened a formal investigation into it. They published their findings in December 2019, concluded that a number of interacting factors were responsible, and decided on balance not to revisit the 2018 grades. It is the regulator’s own account of why maths boundaries can move so much, and it is worth knowing about if anyone tells you a low boundary means a soft year.
This is the mark needed for a grade A, by board. There were no summer exams in 2020 or 2021.
Scroll the chart sideways.
| Year | What was going on |
|---|---|
| 2019 | Boundaries much lower than 2018. Ofqual investigated and published a report on it. |
| 2020–21 | No summer exams. Grades were awarded by other means, so there are no boundaries. Autumn resit series ran instead. |
| 2022 | Deliberately generous, as a halfway step back towards normal grading. The lowest boundaries in the table. |
| 2023 | Return to pre-pandemic standards, with a small allowance for disruption. |
| 2024–26 | Settled back into the normal pattern, with the usual year-to-year drift as paper difficulty varies. |
| Year | AQA | Edexcel | OCR A |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 219 | 210 | 208 |
| 2025 | 221 | 214 | 196 |
| 2024 | 222 | 205 | 168 |
| 2023 | 201 | 196 | 161 |
| 2022 | 171 | 164 | 149 |
| 2019 | 185 | 165 | 161 |
This is where almost every grade boundary page goes quiet, and it is the case that matters most.
Further Maths does not have a grade boundary. It has one for each combination of optional papers, because different options are not equally demanding. Edexcel published ten different sets for 2026. AQA published three.
Why this matters
For Edexcel Further Maths in 2026, the mark needed for a grade A ranged from 236 to 251 depending on which two optional papers you sat. That is a 15-mark spread. Read the wrong row and you will be out by more than a grade.
Everyone sits papers 01 and 02. These rows are sorted by the two optional papers you took on top of those. All are out of 300.
| Route | A* | A | B | C | D | E |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3A, 3B | 275 | 251 | 213 | 176 | 139 | 102 |
| 3B, 3C | 274 | 250 | 213 | 176 | 140 | 104 |
| 3A, 3C | 273 | 247 | 210 | 173 | 136 | 99 |
| 3B, 4B | 271 | 245 | 210 | 175 | 140 | 105 |
| 3B, 3D | 265 | 240 | 204 | 168 | 132 | 97 |
| 3A, 3D | 264 | 237 | 200 | 164 | 128 | 92 |
| 3C, 4C | 264 | 236 | 200 | 165 | 130 | 95 |
| 3A, 4A | 263 | 237 | 200 | 163 | 127 | 91 |
| 3C, 3D | 263 | 236 | 200 | 164 | 129 | 94 |
| 3D, 4D | 262 | 236 | 199 | 162 | 125 | 89 |
AQA splits it by booklet pair instead. All out of 300.
| Route | A* | A | B | C | D | E |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7367DS | 240 | 203 | 169 | 135 | 101 | 67 |
| 7367MD | 239 | 202 | 168 | 135 | 102 | 69 |
| 7367SM | 236 | 199 | 165 | 132 | 99 | 66 |
Check your option codes before you read anything
Your optional papers are printed on your statement of results and on the front of each exam paper you sat. If you are not sure which you took, ask your school — they entered you for them. Picking the wrong row in Further Maths is the single easiest way to misread your own result.
You will see both terms used, often wrongly. The short version:
| Term | What it is | Does it apply to you? |
|---|---|---|
| Raw mark | The actual marks the examiner gave you, added up across your papers. | Yes. Current A-levels are linear and their boundaries are published as raw marks. That is what every table on this page shows. |
| UMS | Uniform Mark Scale. A converted score that lets marks from different sittings of a modular course be added together fairly. | Usually not. UMS belongs to modular qualifications. Pearson’s own document says raw marks are converted to UMS for modular qualifications, and that overall “cash-in” boundaries are shown in UMS only. |
So if you sat the current A-level maths in England, your boundary is a raw mark and there is no conversion to worry about. If you are looking at an International A-level, a pre-2017 modular result, or a resit of an old modular unit, UMS may well apply — and comparing one of those to a number in this article will not tell you anything useful.
AQA asked for 219 marks for an A in 2026 and OCR MEI asked for 187. It looks like OCR MEI is the softer option. It is not, for two reasons.
| Board | Max | A* as % | A as % |
|---|---|---|---|
| AQA | 300 | 87% | 73% |
| Edexcel | 300 | 85% | 70% |
| OCR A | 300 | 83% | 69% |
| OCR MEI | 275 | 81% | 68% |
The real spread is five percentage points at A*, not thirty-six marks. And universities treat an A from any board identically, because the whole point of comparable outcomes is that they mean the same thing.
Boards also publish something called notional component boundaries — a rough per-paper figure. People find these and panic, because they got “a D on paper 2”.
Your grade comes from one number
Your total raw mark across all three papers, compared against the overall qualification boundary. That is the only comparison that decides your grade. A weak paper 2 and a strong paper 3 simply add together.
Notional paper boundaries exist so schools can see where a class was strong or weak. They are a teaching tool. No grade is ever awarded on a single paper.
There is no rounding up and no discretion. If the A boundary is 219 and you scored 218, you have a B. It is brutal, but it is also the only thing that keeps the boundary meaning anything.
What you can do:
Every number on this page came from the boards’ own published documents. Always check the original for anything that matters:
When the numbers appear
Out of 300 raw marks: AQA A* 260, A 219, B 182, C 145, D 108, E 72. Edexcel A* 254, A 210, B 173, C 136, D 100, E 64. OCR A A* 250, A 208, B 172, C 136, D 100, E 65. OCR MEI is out of 275: A* 223, A 187, B 155, C 123, D 92, E 61.
In 2026 it was about 70%, varying slightly by board: AQA 73%, Edexcel 70%, OCR A 69%, OCR MEI 68%. For an A* it was 81% to 87%. These shift a little every year, so treat roughly 70% for an A and 85% for an A* as a working guide rather than a fixed target.
Because each board writes its own papers, and no two sets of papers are equally demanding. The boundary is the adjustment that makes a grade mean the same thing whichever board you sat. Boards also use different totals — OCR MEI is out of 275 while the others are out of 300 — so raw marks are not comparable until you convert them to percentages.
The opposite. A low boundary means the paper was harder than usual, so fewer marks were needed for the same grade. A high boundary means the paper was easier. People get this backwards constantly.
A committee of senior examiners at each board, after all the marking is finished, under Ofqual’s oversight. They use a statistical prediction based on the cohort’s GCSE results together with a review of real scripts around the likely boundary. Only the A and E boundaries are decided this way; B, C and D are calculated from them, and A* is set statistically.
Yes. AQA’s guide to standard setting says the gap between A and E is divided into equal steps, with any remainder added from the top down. We checked this against every published series from 2019 to 2026 for three boards, and against all ten Edexcel Further Maths routes: it was never more than one mark out, and that is rounding.
Yes, if you know A and E. Subtract E from A, divide by four, and step down from A. For AQA 2026 that is (219 − 72) ÷ 4 ≈ 37, giving B 182, C 145 and D 108 — exactly the published figures.
No. There is no quota and you are not competing against your classmates for a fixed number of A grades. The statistical prediction is a reference point to keep standards steady between years, not a cap. If a cohort genuinely does better, more of them can get an A.
Because students sit different optional papers, and those options are not equally demanding, so each combination gets its own boundary. Edexcel published ten sets for 2026 and AQA three. The spread is real: the Edexcel A boundary ranged from 236 to 251 depending on your route.
A raw mark is what the examiner actually gave you. UMS is a converted scale used for modular qualifications so that marks from different sittings can be added together fairly. Current linear A-levels in England publish raw boundaries, so UMS does not apply. It can still apply to International A-levels and to old modular results.
No. Your grade comes from your total across all papers compared with the overall boundary. There is no minimum on any individual paper. The per-paper “notional” boundaries some boards publish are a tool for schools to see where a class struggled, not something that affects your grade.
No. There is no rounding and no discretion at the boundary. You can ask your school to request a review of marking, where a senior examiner checks the mark scheme was applied correctly — but marks can go down as well as up, so get your teacher’s advice first. Asking for a copy of your script before deciding is usually the sensible move.
On results day itself, which was Thursday 13 August in 2026. They are not released early, and nobody — including your teachers — knows them beforehand. Any site showing boundaries for an exam series that has not been marked yet is guessing.
They are two different A-levels. H240 is OCR Mathematics A, marked out of 300. H640 is OCR Mathematics B (MEI), marked out of 275, with different papers and different boundaries. The code is on your statement of results and on the front of your exam papers. Check it before reading any table.
As a rough guide, yes. Boundaries for the same board tend to move by only a handful of marks between settled years. Treat it as a range rather than a line: if you are within about five marks of last year’s boundary, you genuinely do not know yet.
2022 was deliberately graded generously, as a halfway step between the teacher-assessed grades of 2020 and 2021 and a full return to pre-pandemic standards. 2023 brought standards back with a small allowance for disruption, and from 2024 onwards the figures look normal again. This is why comparing your mark to a 2022 boundary will flatter you.
No. An A in A-level maths is an A whichever board awarded it, and offers are written in grades, not boards or marks. Keeping grades comparable across boards is exactly what the awarding process is designed to do.
Thirty-seven marks across three papers is roughly twelve a paper — one question type you keep dropping, or one habit in your working. That is a term’s worth of targeted work, not a different brain. Our tutors teach IB and A‑level maths and work through your own past papers, so we find the marks you are actually losing rather than reteaching what you already know.
Book a free 30-minute meetingRevising for the exams themselves? Our revision notes cover maths topic by topic, or read about our maths tutors.
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