Historical overview of the grade boundaries for AQA GCSE Psychology to date (2024)
| Year | Paper | Max Mark | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 1 | 100 | tbc | tbc | tbc | tbc | tbc | tbc | tbc | tbc | tbc |
| 2024 | 2 | 100 | tbc | tbc | tbc | tbc | tbc | tbc | tbc | tbc | tbc |
| 2023 | 1 | 100 | 83 | 77 | 71 | 60 | 50 | 40 | 29 | 18 | 7 |
| 2023 | 2 | 100 | 78 | 71 | 64 | 55 | 46 | 38 | 27 | 17 | 7 |
| 2022 | 1 | 100 | 80 | 73 | 67 | 58 | 49 | 41 | 30 | 20 | 10 |
| 2022 | 2 | 100 | 79 | 72 | 65 | 56 | 47 | 38 | 28 | 18 | 9 |
| 2021 | 1 | 100 | 71 | 63 | 55 | 47 | 39 | 30 | 22 | 14 | 7 |
| 2021 | 2 | 100 | 71 | 63 | 55 | 47 | 39 | 31 | 23 | 15 | 8 |
| 2020 | 1 | 100 | 74 | 66 | 58 | 48 | 38 | 29 | 21 | 13 | 6 |
| 2020 | 2 | 100 | 74 | 66 | 58 | 48 | 39 | 30 | 22 | 14 | 7 |
| 2019 | 1 | 100 | 77 | 70 | 63 | 55 | 47 | 39 | 29 | 19 | 9 |
| 2019 | 2 | 100 | 78 | 71 | 64 | 56 | 48 | 40 | 30 | 20 | 10 |
Above you have a historical overview of the GCSE grade boundaries for AQA GCSE psychology from 2019 up to 2024.
As the boundaries are released, we will update this table and provide an overview of whether they have increased or decreased.
To work out the total score needed for a Grade 9 across both papers, simply add the two papers threshold for Grade 9 together to get the minimum threshold you must reach to score grade 9 overall for GCSE psychology.
So for example, looking at 2022, we can see that the grade 9 threshold was 80 marks for paper 1 and 79 for paper 2.
We would therefore do 80+79 = 159 marks for a grade 9.
So you must reach 159 marks in total or more to achieve a grade 9 in 2022. Obviously this varies from year to year dependent on what the threshold is for each paper each year.
Looking at the grade boundary table above, we know each exam paper is out of 100 marks.
In 2022, you needed at least 80 marks in paper 1 and 79 marks in paper 2 to achieve a grade 9 overall.
Therefore, to achieve a grade 9 for GCSE psychology, you need to be aiming for at least 80% across both papers as the grade 9 threshold will likely remain around this percentage range (give or take). I would recommend aiming for 85% across both papers in total as your safe mark to almost guarantee scoring a grade 9.
To achieve an average of 80% of both papers, your answers need to be scoring mostly in the top band. Not all textbooks provide enough detailed information to allow you to do this however we have created some PDF textbooks here that have grade 9 content for the whole course.
We've also wrote a detailed guide on how to revise for GCSE psychology here that helps you grasp the subject and helps you navigate through it to achieve the top grade 9 band.
If you do badly in one exam paper, all is not lost too. You can actually do badly in one paper and make it up in the next based provided you average around 80% over both exams. You cannot however, score less than around 65-60% in any one paper as you will not be able to make it up in the next one otherwise.
So for example: if you score 60-60% in paper 1, you will likely need to score at least full marks in paper 2 to achieve a grade 9 overall as this will average around 80% then over both papers.
Get Free Resources For Your School!
