Advanced Higher Computing Science: the 2027 exam, the project and 2025 boundaries

The Advanced Higher Computing Science exam in 2027

The question paper has 55 marks, about 40% of the course. Each section starts with short questions on Advanced Higher ideas in a familiar setting, and moves on to context-based questions with several parts. Questions about the database and web sections each include a database-driven website, with some integration of the other area. The code in the paper uses the SQA reference language, and you may answer in any programming language (course specification, version 5.0; Exam Timetable 2027, version 02).

What Advanced Higher Computing Science covers

• Software design and development. Object-oriented programming: objects, classes, sub-classes, encapsulation, inheritance, instantiation and polymorphism, with UML class diagrams. Data structures such as 2-D arrays, records, arrays of records and arrays of objects, and single and double linked lists. Standard algorithms: binary search, insertion sort and bubble sort.
• Database design and development. Entity-relationship diagrams, a data dictionary, query design, and SQL to define, query and change a relational database, including connecting to it from a program.
• Web design and development. HTML forms and validation, CSS with media queries for responsive pages, and server-side processing with PHP, including form data and sessions.
• Integration. The papers and the project expect you to join the areas together, such as a website that reads from a database.

The entry level is the Higher Computing Science course. Our Higher Computing Science guide covers that.

Advanced Higher Computing Science grade boundaries

In 2025, an A needed 94 marks, a B 80, a C 67 and a D 53. Of 767 candidates, 25.4% got an A (course report 2025, the latest published). The marks were set on the earlier mark totals, and the course is out of 135 from session 2026 to 2027, so those numbers will not carry over exactly. As a guide, Qualifications Scotland aims for a C at about 50% and an A at about 70% (how National Courses are graded).

Advanced Higher Computing Science practice questions

Every question below is our own.

1. Binary search

A sorted list has 1,000 items. What is the most items a binary search needs to check? Each check halves the list, so you need the smallest n with 2ⁿ at least 1,000. As 2¹⁰ = 1,024, the answer is 10. A linear search could need all 1,000. Practise counting halvings in the Search Algorithms course, then press Mark.

2. Bubble sort

Sort [5, 2, 4, 1] into ascending order with a bubble sort. In pass 1, the 5 moves to the end: [2, 4, 1, 5]. In pass 2, the 4 moves up: [2, 1, 4, 5]. In pass 3, the 1 and 2 swap: [1, 2, 4, 5]. A fourth pass with no swaps shows the list is sorted.

3. SQL

A table Book has the fields title, price and copies. To list the titles and prices of books under £10, cheapest first:

SELECT title, price
FROM Book
WHERE price < 10
ORDER BY price;

The specification names FROM, WHERE with AND, OR, <, > and =, ORDER BY on one field, and MAX, MIN, AVG, COUNT and SUM.

The project

The project is worth 80 marks. You choose a software, database or web design project, and it should have a limited number of functional requirements. From the 2025 course report, candidates whose projects had too many requirements could not track them through every stage and most missed marks, and some included unnecessary evidence such as feasibility studies and user surveys. A template to guide candidates, introduced in September 2024, produced a small improvement.

Where candidates do well in the paper

From the 2025 report, 57.3% chose the database section and 42.7% the web section. Candidates did well on the type of linked list, spotting errors in an algorithm, using object-oriented terms to explain code, completing SQL queries with BETWEEN and HAVING, and explaining integrative testing.

Use a daily paper as a short timed prelim

Many schools set an Advanced Higher prelim in winter: see our prelims guide. There is no daily paper for Advanced Higher Computing Science, so use the daily paper for Higher Computing Science, which covers the foundation the course builds on. It is a short timed paper of 8 questions worth 25 to 35 marks, not a full SQA paper and not written by SQA.

Exam answers

The answers and a worked mark scheme come with today's paper once it is marked. Sit the paper as a timed mock, mark it, and the worked answers show where the marks were. We do not publish official or past paper answers.

Read next

Scotland · Advanced HigherAdvanced Higher Computing Science grade boundaries 2025SQA's 2025 Advanced Higher Computing Science boundaries out of 135: A at 94, C at 67. See the table, how the project counts and the change from 2024.