How A-Level Mark Schemes Work

If you want to consistently hit the top grades, you need to understand the system that determines your grade. That system is the mark scheme — and at A-Level, mark schemes work very differently from what you experienced at GCSE.

Most students never look at a mark scheme. They revise the content, sit the exam, and hope for the best. This is like training for a race without knowing whether it is a sprint or a marathon. Understanding how marks are allocated fundamentally changes how you approach every answer.

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Levels-Based Marking: The A-Level Standard

At GCSE, many questions use point-based marking: one mark per valid point, up to the total available. Write four correct points for a 4-mark question and you get full marks. It is relatively mechanical.

A-Level moves to levels-based marking for most extended-response questions. Instead of counting points, the examiner reads your entire response and places it into a band (also called a "level") based on the overall quality of the work.

A typical levels-based mark scheme for a 25-mark question might look like this: