GCSE maths: how a tough exam may not result in poor grades!!!!!

Thousands of teenagers took to Twitter to complain. Others signed online petitions demanding exam board Edexcel lower the grade boundaries after finding a GCSE maths paper "ridiculously hard".

The exam board has assured students it will treat them "fairly" when it comes to marking. So how will Edexcel ensure this year's pass rate does not fall through the floor?

In common with other major exam boards, Edexcel sets grade boundaries once all the work has been marked.

"This helps maintain standards from year to year, as it takes into account differences in the difficulty of the exam or assessments," explain Edexcel's owners Pearson on their website.

Once the raw marks are in, senior examiners meet to assess a range of the marked work and compare the standards with those outlined in the exam specification and with work from previous years.

"This helps our senior examiners get a rounded picture of how learners have performed and, after careful consideration, they use their professional judgement to decide the minimum number of marks required for each grade," says the webpage.