Advanced Higher Physics grade boundaries 2025: what each grade needed

Advanced Higher Physics grade boundaries 2025

These come from SQA's Grade boundaries 2025 workbook, and the 2025 course report prints the same minimum marks. A boundary is the lowest total that earns the grade. SQA changed its name to Qualifications Scotland on 1 February 2026, after these results were out.

The 160 marks are earned across two components, a question paper and an investigative project, and SQA's course specification says the grade is based on the total marks across both. That differs from Advanced Higher Maths, where only exams count, so the project mark matters. The Advanced Higher Physics guide explains the content, and the relationships sheet guide lists what you are given.

Converting a total: 98 out of 160

A candidate's exam and project marks add up to 98. That is at least 92 and under 110, so the grade is a B. It is 6 marks over the B line and 12 short of an A. In 2025 the 98 is 61% of 160, while the A boundary sat at 69%.

Because the exam and the project are added together, there is no separate pass mark for either. A strong project can make up for a weak paper, and the reverse.

2025 against 2024

The report says the question paper performed as expected, though a small number of questions proved more challenging than anticipated: 2(c), 4(c) and 13(c)(i). In light of that, the boundaries were adjusted at the upper A, A and C lines. Even so the published numbers are within one mark of 2024 everywhere, so the standard was effectively unchanged.

Advanced Higher Physics boundaries since 2019

The A boundary as a share of the maximum was 69% in 2019, 66% in 2022 and 2023, then 69% in both 2024 and 2025. The total of 160 is new since 2024, so use those percentages rather than raw marks to compare across the change.

Entries and results

There were 2,117 resulted entries, down from 2,254 in 2024. The statistics are prepared before appeals complete.

Just over a quarter of the entry got an A, and 10.7% got No Award, a lower No Award rate than Maths.

What the 2025 report says went wrong

• Explaining in terms of forces. In 2(c), few explained why people slide down the wall of a rotating drum. Most discussed centripetal force and horizontal motion instead of saying friction no longer balanced the weight.
• Rate, not speed. In 4(c) candidates wrote that time "ran faster", which does not address the rate at which time passes.
• Escape velocity. In 4(a)(ii) candidates wrote that the spacecraft needed to leave the orbit of the Earth, not its gravitational field.
• Practical skills. The report links weak answers on experimental technique, data analysis and uncertainties to a lack of exposure to practical work.
• The project. It performed as expected, but weak practical experience earlier in the course held some candidates back.

How to use today's paper

Sit today's Advanced Higher Physics paper, a short timed paper of 8 questions and 25 to 35 marks. It has no project, so it covers only the exam side of the course. Mark it with the worked answers once it is marked and convert to a percentage. The 2025 C line was 47% and the A line 69%. Remember that the real total includes the project.

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Scotland · Advanced HigherAdvanced Higher Physics grade boundaries 2026Qualifications Scotland's 2026 Advanced Higher Physics boundaries out of 160, why they fell 3 to 4 marks, and what the report says about the project.