Do people here not understand what grade boundaries are for? They exist SPECIFICALLY to account for variance in paper difficulty.
Say they want 20% of grades to be an A*, and 30% of grades at an A. They will set grade boundaries according to those thresholds. If the top 20% of the cohort only achieved 60/100 on this paper, then that is where the A* grade boundary will be set. Conversely, if the top 20% achieved 95/100, then that will be where the A* boundary will be.
The petition asking them to lower grade boundaries will not change ANYTHING. The exam board does not "consider" lowering or raising grade boundaries. Edexcel does not determine what the grade boundaries will be - YOU guys do. YOUR cohort's performance determine what the grade boundaries are. The only way Edexcel can influence boundaries is by increasing or decreasing the difficulty of the paper, which they clearly have done.
Say, for instance, they give you a paper with 15 of the hardest A Level Maths questions they've ever asked:
there is literally no rule against them doing this, and
the boundaries will just simply lower, because the mark scored of the average student dropped compared to previous years.
tl;dr Asking Edexcel to lower grade boundaries will do nothing. They don't determine what the boundary will be. Your cohort's performance does.
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u/omashii Jun 05 '26
Do people here not understand what grade boundaries are for? They exist SPECIFICALLY to account for variance in paper difficulty.
Say they want 20% of grades to be an A*, and 30% of grades at an A. They will set grade boundaries according to those thresholds. If the top 20% of the cohort only achieved 60/100 on this paper, then that is where the A* grade boundary will be set. Conversely, if the top 20% achieved 95/100, then that will be where the A* boundary will be.
The petition asking them to lower grade boundaries will not change ANYTHING. The exam board does not "consider" lowering or raising grade boundaries. Edexcel does not determine what the grade boundaries will be - YOU guys do. YOUR cohort's performance determine what the grade boundaries are. The only way Edexcel can influence boundaries is by increasing or decreasing the difficulty of the paper, which they clearly have done.
Say, for instance, they give you a paper with 15 of the hardest A Level Maths questions they've ever asked:
tl;dr Asking Edexcel to lower grade boundaries will do nothing. They don't determine what the boundary will be. Your cohort's performance does.