National 5 Maths grade boundaries 2025: A, B, C, D marks

National 5 Maths grade boundaries 2025

The table is copied from the Maths row of the National 5 sheet in SQA's Grade boundaries 2025 (release 25GB, 5 August 2025). The SQA was the awarding body then and became Qualifications Scotland in February 2026, so any new link to the figures may carry the newer name. Each boundary is the lowest mark that earns the grade.

An A therefore needed 71% of the marks, and a C needed 52%. You will see 70% and 50% quoted as the targets that papers are written for; the actual line moved up a little for 2025 because the papers were easier than planned. Our National 5 Maths guide covers the content.

What the 90 marks are made of

National 5 Maths is assessed by two question papers and nothing else, so the 90 marks are the whole grade. Paper 1 is non-calculator, 40 marks, 1 hour. Paper 2 allows a calculator, 50 marks, 1 hour 30 minutes. They are added together before any boundary is applied, so a weak Paper 1 can be rescued by Paper 2 and the other way round.

The totals are not what they were. In 2019 the course was marked out of 110, with an A at 74, so that year's boundaries are in a different currency (see the comparison below). The papers and marks above are from the course specification.

How many candidates got each grade in 2025

Nearly two in five candidates reached an A, and almost one in five got nothing at all: 6,441 candidates, 18.5%, fell below the D boundary of 38. Entries dropped by about 1,800 from the 36,689 of 2024. The SQA's own report says these figures were compiled before the appeals process finished, so the final numbers may shift slightly.

Turning a mark into a grade

A candidate scores 28 out of 40 on Paper 1 and 31 out of 50 on Paper 2. The total is 59. That clears the B boundary of 55 and falls 5 short of the A boundary of 64, so the grade is B. If one extra question on Paper 2 had been worth 5 more marks, the grade would have been A.

Only A, C and the upper A are chosen at the awarding meeting. The B and D lines then follow by formula, with a as the A boundary and c as the C boundary:

Here a is 64 and c is 47, so a − c = 17. B = 47 + ⌊35 ÷ 4⌋ = 47 + 8 = 55, and D = 47 − ⌈33 ÷ 4⌉ = 47 − 9 = 38. Both match the table. The formulas come from the grading page on the SQA site.

2025 against earlier years

The C boundary rose from 45 in 2024 to 47 in 2025, and D from 35 to 38, while A stayed at 64. Going back, 2022 and 2023 had A at 62 and C at only 39 and 36, which is about 43% and 40% of 90. That was the lenient end of the post-pandemic period. By 2025 the C boundary had climbed to 52% of the total, much closer to the 50% the papers are meant to produce.

In 2019 the A boundary was 74 out of 110, which is 67.3%, against 71.1% in 2025. The C boundary was 49 of 110, 44.5%, against 52.2% now. Judged by share, an A in 2025 took more than it did in 2019.

What the SQA said about the 2025 papers

The course report says both papers were slightly less demanding than expected, and the grade boundaries were adjusted to account for this. Paper 1 performed as expected except for question 9(a), and on Paper 2 questions 4(b) and 9 were less demanding than intended. Raising the boundaries is how the SQA keeps an A worth the same each year.

Where marks were lost: on Paper 1, many candidates got no marks for question 8, interpreting a trigonometric graph, and many got none for the quadratic problem in question 15(b) and 15(c), where common errors were solving the equation as though it were linear and forgetting to reject the negative solution. On Paper 2, many candidates scored nothing on question 12, the sine rule with bearings, because they treated triangle ABC as right-angled. The comparison question, 4(b), lost marks for answers like "the rugby players' scores were lower" that name neither the mean nor the standard deviation.

What the 2025 numbers tell you

Three things stand out. A C needed under 53% of the marks, so a candidate who can do the routine questions on both papers is near the line. The gap between B and A is 9 marks and the gap between C and B is 8, so each grade step is about a tenth of the paper. And the questions the report singles out, quadratics in context, trigonometric graphs and bearings, are where a candidate gains the most by practice.

Boundaries do not carry forward, and the 2026 figures were different again: see National 5 Maths grade boundaries 2026. For all courses in 2025 see SQA grade boundaries 2025.

Check yourself with today's paper

Sit today's National 5 Maths paper timed. It is a short paper of 8 questions and 25 to 35 marks written by us, not by the SQA. Divide your mark by the total: 21 out of 30 is 70%. In 2025 that would sit between B (61%) and A (71%) on the real scale. Do it on several days, then average the results.

Read next

Scotland · National 5National 5 Maths grade boundaries 2026: A, B, C, D marksNational 5 Maths grade boundaries 2026 from Qualifications Scotland: A needed 65 of 90, B 55, C 46 and D 36, with 2025 compared and results by grade.