Higher Maths grade boundaries 2025: A, B, C, D marks

Higher Maths grade boundaries 2025

The numbers are from the Maths row of the Higher sheet in the SQA's Grade boundaries 2025 workbook (release 25GB, 5 August 2025) and the SQA's 2025 course report. The SQA became Qualifications Scotland in February 2026; these 2025 figures were issued under the SQA name.

An A needed 71.7% of the marks, and a C needed 50%. Our Higher Maths guide has the papers and topics.

What the 120 marks are made of

Higher Maths is two question papers and no coursework, so all 120 marks come from the exam. Paper 1 is non-calculator, 55 marks in 1 hour 15 minutes. Paper 2 allows a calculator, 65 marks in 1 hour 30 minutes. The split is from the course specification, whose marks and durations were amended in May 2023, and a formulae list is printed in each paper.

In 2019 the course was out of 150, with an A at 101, so that column below is on a different scale; the columns for 2022 to 2025 are all out of 120.

How many candidates got each grade in 2025

Over 40% of candidates reached an A, about one in seven got a C and 3,105 candidates, 15.7%, got No Award. Entries were 19,767, up from 18,517 in 2024. The A rate fell back to 37.6% in 2026.

Turning a mark into a grade

A candidate scores 41 on Paper 1 and 38 on Paper 2, a total of 79. That clears B at 73 and misses A at 86 by 7 marks, so it is a B. To reach band 1, an upper A, the total would have to hit 103.

Where do B and D come from? Only A, C and upper A are decided at the awarding meeting, and the SQA's formulae give the rest. With A at 86 and C at 60, the gap is 26, so B = 60 + ⌊53 ÷ 4⌋ = 60 + 13 = 73 and D = 60 − ⌈51 ÷ 4⌉ = 60 − 13 = 47. Those are the published values.

2025 against earlier years

The A boundary went from 84 in 2022, 2023 and 2024 to 86 in 2025, and C went from 57, 57 and 59 to 60. A year earlier the C line had been 59, so 2025 is the toughest C of the series. In 2019 the A was 101 of 150, 67.3%, and in 2025 it was 86 of 120, 71.7%, so the A is now a higher share of a smaller paper.

What the SQA said about the 2025 papers

The 2025 course report says the course assessment performed largely as expected and was accessible. Two questions were less demanding than expected and were allowed for: question 10 on Paper 1, on the angle between two vectors, and question 9(a) on Paper 2. The boundaries of 86 and 60 were set with that in mind.

Marks were lost in a few places. On Paper 1, many candidates did not gain full marks for question 5, transforming a graph, and many did not evaluate a final logarithmic expression correctly. Some lost marks by omitting the constant of integration. On Paper 2, few candidates communicated their conclusion about collinearity unambiguously, only a few handled the phase change in the wave function, and many scored nothing on question 8, a vector pathway. Many used elimination where substitution was easier in question 1.

What the 2025 boundaries mean for you

An A at 86 out of 120 asks for very few dropped marks, and most of the lost marks the report describes are about reasoning: the collinearity conclusion, the phase change and the constant of integration. Practise writing the sentence as well as the algebra. For differentiation and integration, try the Derivative Calculator.

The following year's figures are in Higher Maths grade boundaries 2026. See SQA grade boundaries 2025 for other courses.

Check yourself with today's paper

Our Higher Maths daily papers cover Algebra and Functions and Calculus. Each is a short timed paper of 8 questions and 25 to 35 marks, written by us. Mark it, then divide: 25 out of 30 is 83%, above the 71.7% share an A took in 2025, while 18 out of 30 is 60%, just under the B share of 60.8%.

Read next

Scotland · HigherHigher Maths grade boundaries 2026: A, B, C, D marksHigher Maths grade boundaries 2026 from Qualifications Scotland: A needed 83 of 120, B 70, C 58 and D 45, with 37.6% getting an A, and 2025 compared.