An Analysis of Grade Boundary Marks in A Levels and GCSEs if the 2020 'Standard' Was Applied to 2019 Results. Research Report

The aim of this research was to determine the standard that was effectively applied to General Certificates of Secondary Education (GCSE) and A levels in June 2020 by the decision to accept the maximum of the centre-assessed grade and the calculated grade. The data for this analysis came from the results tables for GCSEs and A levels in 2019 and 2020 in the ISP warehouse. Results show that overall, the mean fall in the grade boundaries was 0.76 of a grade. The subject means varied between 0.45 of a grade for Maths (specification B) and 1.42 of a grade for Latin. The largest mean for a subject with more than 1,000 students was for Computer Science (1.05). The biggest reduction at an individual grade was at grade E on English Literature (3.28), which saw the grade boundary fall from 89 in the actual June 2019 to 24 if the 2020 standard was applied. There were some interesting differences in the average changes at each grade. There was a clear pattern whereby the size of the change was higher at lower grades. The gap between actual 2019 and adjusted 2019 boundaries tended to be higher for lower grades.