You open your A-level results and discover that you have missed the next grade by one mark.
The immediate reaction is often: “Get it remarked.”
Sometimes that is exactly the right thing to do. Sometimes it is not.
What we usually call a “remark” is officially a review of marking. It is worth understanding the difference. The exam board does not simply give the paper to another examiner and ask them to mark it again from scratch. The reviewer checks whether the original mark scheme was applied correctly and corrects any errors that are found.
Your mark could go up. It could stay exactly where it is. It can also go down.
So before requesting one, check these five things.
1. How many marks do you actually need?
Start with the overall result.
If the next grade boundary was 180 and you scored 179, you need one extra mark.
If you scored 174, you need six.
That does not automatically mean the student one mark away should request a review and the student six marks away should not. But it tells you how much needs to change for the review to make a difference.
Being one mark short is frustrating, but being close to a boundary is not evidence that the marking is wrong.
That is probably the most important point to remember.
A grade boundary simply tells you where the grade was set. It does not tell you whether your particular paper contains a marking error.
Instead of asking:
“How close was I?”
ask:
“Is there a realistic reason to think I should have received additional marks?”
That is a much better starting point.
2. Look for evidence, not hope
If your university place is not hanging on an immediate decision, it can be very useful for your school or college to obtain your marked scripts and have a subject teacher look at them.
Access to scripts exists partly to help centres decide whether a review of marking is appropriate.
A teacher might spot:
- an answer that appears to satisfy the mark scheme but has not been credited;
- part of a question that seems to have been missed;
- an incorrect total;
- a correct calculation where the expected marks do not appear to have been awarded;
- a longer answer where the awarded level seems difficult to reconcile with the marking criteria.
This gives you something much more useful than simply saying, “I was only one mark away.”
However, there is an important limitation.
A review is not supposed to replace one reasonable academic judgement with another. JCQ says a marking error can include an unreasonable exercise of academic judgement, but different examiners can legitimately reach slightly different reasonable judgements.
In other words:
“My teacher might have given this six marks rather than five” is not necessarily enough.
“This answer clearly contains the point required for the mark and it appears not to have been credited” is much stronger.
The best requests are based on something identifiable in the marking rather than the hope that another look might produce an extra mark.
3. Work out where those extra marks could come from
Do not just look at the overall grade.
Look at the individual papers.
Imagine a student needs two additional marks for an A.
Their teacher looks through three papers and finds:
Paper 1: marking looks entirely reasonable.
Paper 2: two answers appear worth checking.
Paper 3: one longer response may contain an overlooked point.
There is now a much stronger basis for considering a review.
The key question is:
Can you actually identify enough potentially recoverable marks to reach the grade you need?
If you need one mark and can see two or three plausible areas to question, that is very different from needing seven marks and being unable to identify anything obviously wrong.
There is also useful national context.
In summer 2025, 58,830 AS and A-level grades were challenged. Of these, 14,150 — 24.1% — changed. Around 24.0% changed upwards and fewer than 0.1% changed downwards.
That sounds encouraging, but be careful with the statistic.
It does not mean that every student who asks for a review has roughly a one-in-four chance of gaining a grade. Schools tend to submit cases where there is already some reason to question the result.
Across all AS and A-level grades awarded in summer 2025, only 1.6% were ultimately changed following reviews.
So use evidence from your own scripts rather than trying to calculate your chances from national figures.
4. If a university place depends on it, treat the decision differently
This is where the normal advice changes.
Suppose your university offer was AAB.
You receive ABB.
You are one or two marks short of the A.
That is not simply a question of whether you would like another grade. The outcome could determine where you spend the next three or four years.
Contact your school or college immediately and also contact the university.
Do not assume the university will automatically hold your place while you wait. UCAS advises students who narrowly miss their requirements to contact the university and discuss their position, while also speaking to their school or college about whether a priority review is appropriate. Universities are not obliged to hold places while reviews take place.
There is a special Priority Service 2 for A levels.
For the summer 2026 series, the deadline for exam boards to receive a priority review request is 20 August 2026 — only seven days after A-level results day.
The exam board’s target is to complete the priority review within 15 calendar days of receiving the request.
That short deadline matters.
If a university place is genuinely dependent on the grade, do not spend several days debating whether to do anything.
Speak to:
your subject teacher → your exams officer → your university
as soon as possible.
Indeed, AQA specifically advises that where a university or college place is pending, candidates should go straight to a priority review rather than delay matters while waiting for a priority copy of the script.
Your school can advise you on the equivalent procedure for your particular exam board.
5. Understand that the mark can go down
This is the part that should never be skipped.
There is no grade protection when a review of marking is requested.
The result can be:
higher
unchanged
or
lower.
AQA states this explicitly, and JCQ requires centres to obtain written candidate consent because marks and grades can be lowered.
Suppose you are six marks short of an A but only one mark above the B/C boundary.
You need to think carefully about the balance of risk and reward.
The national figures suggest that an actual downward grade change is rare. Fewer than 0.1% of challenged AS and A-level grades in summer 2025 changed downwards.
But rare does not mean impossible.
This is why the student has to give consent.
It is also another reason not to request reviews simply because you are disappointed with the result.
There should be a reason for doing it.
So, should you ask for an A-level remark?
A simple test is to ask yourself five questions.
1. How many marks do I need?
One or two marks makes a grade change much more achievable than needing a large movement.
2. Is there evidence that marks may have been missed?
If a teacher can identify specific questionable marking decisions, your case is stronger.
3. Can I see enough possible marks to reach the next grade?
Do not focus solely on the boundary. Look at where the extra marks might actually come from.
4. Does changing the grade matter?
If it determines a university place, the decision becomes much more urgent.
5. Am I prepared for the mark to stay the same — or fall?
You need to understand the possible outcomes before giving consent.
If your answers look something like:
“I need one mark, my teacher has spotted two answers worth questioning and that extra grade would secure my university place,”
then there is a strong reason to investigate a review quickly.
If the situation is:
“I need six marks, nobody can identify any questionable marking and the grade makes no difference to my next step,”
the argument is much weaker.
One more thing: watch the deadlines
For summer 2026 A levels, the key JCQ deadlines are:
20 August 2026: deadline for Priority Service 2 reviews of marking.
24 September 2026: deadline for standard Reviews of Results.
A standard Service 2 review should normally be completed within 20 calendar days of the awarding body receiving the request.
Your own school or college may set an earlier internal deadline so that its exams team has time to process requests.
For most students entered through a school or college, the centre submits the request rather than the student or parent approaching the exam board directly. Private candidates have slightly different arrangements and may, in some circumstances, submit requests directly to the awarding body.
So if you are unsure on results day, a good first question is not:
“Can I have a remark?”
Try:
“How many marks am I away, is there evidence on my papers that the marking may be wrong, and would a review be worth requesting?”
That turns an emotional decision into an informed one.
Sources used
Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ), Post-Results Services: Information and guidance to centres, Summer 2026.
Ofqual, Reviews of marking and moderation for GCSE, AS and A level: summer 2025 exam series.
AQA, Review and priority review of marking and Access to scripts.
UCAS, results-day and grade-review guidance for 2026.