GCSE
What Percentage Is a Grade 7 at GCSE?
Using summer 2026 boundaries, a grade 7 needed roughly 69 percent in AQA higher maths, 61 percent in Edexcel higher maths, and 54 to 62 percent in higher tier combined science depending on the board. In untiered AQA English Language it was 64 percent. There is no single fixed percentage per grade.
There is no official percentage for any GCSE grade. Boundaries are set separately for every subject, board, tier and year, after all the papers are marked. What you can do is look at the most recent real boundaries and read off what each grade actually took. Everything below uses the summer 2026 series, published on 20 August 2026, taken from the boards' own boundary documents. I sit Cambridge IGCSE rather than the UK boards, so this page is research, not memory, and I have stated which board and tier every figure belongs to. Treat each percentage as a snapshot of one summer, not a rule.
Maths, summer 2026: grade by grade
On higher tier out of 240, AQA wanted 219 marks for a 9 (91 percent), 192 for an 8 (80 percent) and 166 for a 7 (69 percent). Edexcel sat lower: 208 for a 9 (87 percent), 177 for an 8 (74 percent) and 146 for a 7 (61 percent). OCR marks out of 300: 264 for a 9 (88 percent), 217 for an 8 (72 percent) and 170 for a 7 (57 percent). On foundation, grade 4 took about 64 percent with AQA, 63 with Edexcel and 44 with OCR, while grade 5 took roughly 78, 75 and 61 percent respectively. Notice the spread: a maths 7 was 57 percent on one board and 69 percent on another in the same summer. That is not one board being generous. Their papers differ in difficulty, and boundaries are set afterwards so the grade standard stays level.
Sciences, summer 2026: combined and separate
Combined science on higher tier: AQA Trilogy is out of 420 and wanted 228 for a 7-7 (54 percent), 262 for an 8-8 (62 percent) and 298 for a 9-9 (71 percent). Edexcel, out of 360, wanted 221 for a 7-7 (61 percent), 251 for an 8-8 (70 percent) and 282 for a 9-9 (78 percent). OCR Gateway, also out of 360, sat at 222 for a 7-7 (62 percent) and 275 for a 9-9 (76 percent). Separate sciences vary even more. AQA Biology higher, out of 200, needed 107 for a 7, just 54 percent, while OCR Gateway Chemistry higher, out of 180, needed 139 for a 7, which is 77 percent, and 163 for a 9, a striking 91 percent. So a student scoring 60 percent could be sitting on a grade 8 in one science and a grade 5 in another. The subject and board on the front of the paper change everything.
Why the same grade needs a different percentage on each tier
Grades 4 and 5 exist on both tiers, and the percentages behind them are wildly different. In 2026 maths, a grade 4 needed about 63 or 64 percent of a foundation paper with AQA or Edexcel, but only about 26 and 21 percent of their higher papers, and 19 percent with OCR. That looks absurd until you remember the papers are different. Higher tier questions start at roughly grade 4 difficulty and climb to grade 9, so scraping a quarter of a higher paper demonstrates about the same maths as two thirds of a foundation paper. This is also the hidden risk in tier choice. On higher tier there is a small safety net below grade 4, a grade 3 awarded at reduced marks, and then a U, so a bad day on higher can leave you with nothing while the same performance on foundation would have banked a pass. A percentage only means something with the tier attached.
Why English boundaries look different from maths
AQA English Language in summer 2026, out of 160, needed 75 for a 4 (47 percent), 103 for a 7 (64 percent) and 122 for a 9 (76 percent). Compare maths higher on the same board: 26 percent for a 4 and 91 percent for a 9. English compresses the range for two reasons. It is untiered, so a single paper has to separate grade 1 from grade 9, and it is marked in levels rather than right or wrong answers. Level based marking pulls scores toward the middle: almost nobody scores below 30 percent, because writing anything relevant earns low level marks, and almost nobody scores above 85, because the top of the top level is awarded cautiously. In maths an answer is simply right or wrong, so the full mark range gets used. This is why comparing your percentage across subjects tells you very little, and comparing it to that subject's own boundary tells you everything.
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Is 70 percent a grade 7 at GCSE?
Sometimes, and that is exactly the problem with rules of thumb. In summer 2026, 70 percent of AQA higher maths was just above the grade 7 boundary, 70 percent of Edexcel combined science higher was already an 8-8, and 70 percent of OCR Gateway chemistry higher was below that grade 7 line of 77 percent. The subject and board decide, not the percentage.
What percentage is a grade 9 in GCSE maths?
In the summer 2026 series, on higher tier, a 9 needed 219 out of 240 with AQA (91 percent), 208 out of 240 with Edexcel (87 percent) and 264 out of 300 with OCR (88 percent). So roughly nine marks in every ten, on the hardest tier, and there is no grade 9 available on foundation.
What percentage is a grade 4 pass?
It depends heavily on tier. In 2026 maths, foundation grade 4 sat at about 64 percent with AQA, 63 with Edexcel and 44 with OCR, while on higher tier the same grade needed only about 26, 21 and 19 percent. In untiered AQA English Language it was 47 percent. There is no universal pass percentage, which is why boundary tables exist.
Can I use these percentages to grade my mock exams?
Roughly, and only if the mock was a real past paper from the same board and you use that paper's own published boundaries rather than a generic percentage. Applying 2026 maths boundaries to a different year's paper, or to a test your teacher wrote, gives a false reading in either direction. Most schools apply recent boundaries to real papers, which is about as fair as mocks get.
Why do grade boundaries change every year?
Because the papers change. Boards cannot make every exam equally difficult, so Ofqual has them set boundaries after marking, using statistics plus examiner judgement to hold the grade standard steady across years. A harder paper gets lower boundaries and an easier one gets higher boundaries. That is why revising to beat last summer's exact number means planning around a stale figure.