AQA A-level Biology grade boundaries 2025: marks for A* to E

AQA A-level Biology grade boundaries June 2025

From the Biology Adv row of AQA's A-level grade boundaries for June 2025 (version 1.0, published 14 August 2025). Each is the lowest total out of 260 that earns the grade; below E is a U. AQA Biology (7402) is three papers: Paper 1 and Paper 2 are 91 marks each, and Paper 3 is 78 marks, which includes an essay worth 25 marks. They add to 260, so every boundary below is out of 260, not 300.

Our guides to A-level Biology and AQA A-level Biology cover the content.

A Biology total, worked through

A candidate scores 47 on Paper 1, 46 on Paper 2 and 46 on Paper 3, a total of 139 out of 260. The 2025 B boundary is 139 and C is 113, so 139 is a B, exactly on the line. In 2024 the B boundary was 140, so the same 139 would have been a C.

Paper 3 is the one that can swing a total: it has 38 marks of structured questions, 15 marks of data analysis and a 25 mark essay chosen from two titles. The gap from B to A in 2025 was 26 marks, so a 10 mark difference between a strong essay and a weak one covers more than a third of it.

2025 against 2024 and 2023

From AQA's 2024 and 2023 documents:

Biology had two very different movements. From 2023 to 2024 the boundaries jumped: A from 153 to 165, and E from 44 to 67, which is 23 marks. From 2024 to 2025 they barely moved: A* and A stayed put at 192 and 165, and the lower grades slipped by 1 to 4 marks (E from 67 to 63).

Paper by paper

AQA's notional boundaries for each paper, "for illustrative purposes only":

Paper 2 had the highest notional A* (69 out of 91) and Paper 3 the lowest (57 out of 78), but as a share Paper 3 sits at 73% and Paper 1 at 73%. Your grade comes from the 260 total.

What these boundaries mean for Biology

• An A* is 74%. 192 marks, with 68 to lose.
• An A is 63%. 165 marks.
• An E is 24%. 63 marks, under a quarter of the total.

Use today's paper to estimate your grade

Sit today's Biology Paper 1 or Paper 2, a short timed paper of 8 questions worth 25 to 35 marks. We write them, so they are not AQA papers and have no essay. Mark it and divide by the total. 20 out of 31 is 65%, above the A share of 63% and below the A* share of 74%. A run of days averaged with the Mean, Median and Mode Calculator will help.

Mistakes to avoid

• Using a total of 300. Biology is out of 260.
• Using the 2023 table. The E boundary was 19 marks lower then.
• Ignoring the essay. It is 25 marks of Paper 3.

Read next

UK · A-levelAQA A-level grade boundaries 2025: marks for every gradeAQA's official June 2025 A-level grade boundaries for Maths, Further Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Computer Science, with 2024 and 2023.