WJEC GCSE Biology grade boundaries 2025: what each grade needed

WJEC GCSE Biology grade boundaries June 2025

WJEC does not give Biology one raw-mark table for the whole qualification. It publishes the totals in the overall UMS document and each unit's raw marks in its grade converter. The totals first:

Raw marks for Units 1 and 2 on Foundation tier, 2025

Raw marks for Units 1 and 2 on Higher tier, 2025

Raw marks for the practical, Unit 3

What share of the marks is each grade?

Both written papers are 80 marks, per WJEC's specification, so the raw marks convert easily into shares. These are the top and bottom grades of each tier.

The Foundation C asked for 49% of Unit 1 but only 43% of Unit 2, so Unit 2 was the more forgiving paper that summer. On Higher, the A* took 65% of Unit 1 and 73% of Unit 2, while a C was a fifth to a little over a quarter of the marks.

A Foundation example

A candidate on Foundation papers scores 36 in Unit 1, 30 in Unit 2 and 14 in the practical. The converter gives 100, 98 and 25 uniform marks, a total of 223 out of 400. That is above the D boundary of 200 and below the C boundary of 240, so the grade is a D, 17 marks short of a C. Foundation stops at a C.

Tiers and the spec

Higher awards A* to D and Foundation awards C to G. The specification expects a candidate to sit one tier, though it says that in exceptional cases a mix of tiers may be right. The UMS document gives a Higher candidate who narrowly fails a D an E, which is why the Higher table has an E column.

What happened in Wales in 2025

JCQ's Wales release for 21 August 2025 gave Biology 41.8% at A*/9 to A/7 and 86.7% at C/4 or above. Science Double Award, with the same standard but a wider range of candidates, had 7.5% and 50.0%. See GCSE grades in Wales for the letters.

Looking forward to 2026

In June 2026 the Foundation raw marks rose by 3 to 5 at every grade, and the Higher ones barely moved. The 2026 Biology page has the table. The uniform marks above did not change.

Check yourself with a daily paper

Try Biology Foundation or Biology Higher. Each is 8 questions, 25 to 35 marks, set by us and not by WJEC. If you score 22 out of 30 you have 73%, the share that a Higher Unit 2 A* needed in 2025. It is a short paper, so treat it as a yardstick. Run a few over a week and judge from the average, because one paper only samples the topics.

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UK · GCSEWJEC GCSE Biology grade boundaries 2026: marks per gradeWJEC's June 2026 GCSE Biology grade boundaries: fixed UMS totals, the raw marks for Units 1, 2 and 3 on both tiers, a worked grade and the change on 2025.