Edexcel, AQA, OCR A, OCR B (MEI) and Cambridge International all examine the same core content — but they carve it into papers very differently. Here is what changes, and what it means for how you revise.
Students often ask which board is easiest. It is the wrong question. Since the 2017 reform, the content of A Level Mathematics is set nationally: every board in England teaches the same prescribed Pure, Statistics and Mechanics material, all of it compulsory, all of it examined at the end of two years. No modules, no picking your applied options, no January resits.
What differs between boards is not what you have to know. It is how the content is split across the papers, and the house style of the questions.
What every board has in common
- Three papers, two hours each, sat at the end of Year 13.
- Pure maths is roughly two thirds of the qualification; Statistics and Mechanics share the remaining third.
- A calculator is allowed in every paper — unlike GCSE, there is no non-calculator paper.
- A formulae booklet is provided, and it is worth knowing early what is in it and what you must memorise.
- Statistics is examined against a large data set the board publishes in advance.
- Overlap with AS is common, but AS marks do not count towards the A Level grade.
How the papers are split
This is the real difference. The same content, packaged four ways:
| Board | Paper 1 | Paper 2 | Paper 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Edexcel (9MA0) | Pure 1 | Pure 2 | Statistics and Mechanics, in two sections |
| AQA (7357) | Pure | Pure and Mechanics | Pure and Statistics |
| OCR A (H240) | Pure | Pure and Statistics | Pure and Mechanics |
| OCR B / MEI (H640) | Pure and Mechanics | Pure and Statistics | Pure and Comprehension |
Read that table again with revision in mind. On Edexcel, an entire paper is applied maths and two are untouched pure — so a weakness in mechanics is contained in one place, and a weakness in pure costs you across two papers. On AQA and OCR, pure appears in all three papers, so pure gaps leak everywhere, but a bad day on statistics damages only part of one paper.
The boards one at a time
Edexcel (Pearson) — 9MA0
The most widely sat specification in England. Papers 1 and 2 are pure only, each 100 marks over two hours. Paper 3 is also 100 marks, split into a statistics section and a mechanics section worth 50 each. Questions tend to be structured and predictable in shape, which makes past-paper practice unusually transferable — and makes it important to actually do them rather than read them.
AQA — 7357
Three 100-mark papers of two hours: Paper 1 is pure, Paper 2 pairs pure with mechanics, Paper 3 pairs pure with statistics. AQA papers often open with a run of short, sharp questions before the longer ones, and multiple-choice style items appear more here than elsewhere. Pace at the start matters.
OCR A — H240
Paper 1 is pure, Paper 2 is pure and statistics, Paper 3 is pure and mechanics — the mirror image of AQA. Two hours and 100 marks each. OCR has a reputation for questions that ask you to explain or justify rather than just compute, so practise writing the reason as well as the answer.
OCR B (MEI) — H640
The one genuine structural outlier. Paper 1 is pure and mechanics, Paper 2 is pure and statistics, and Paper 3 is pure with a comprehension section: you are given an unseen article and answer questions on it. It rewards reading mathematics you have never met before and extracting the argument — a different skill from anything in the other specifications, and one worth practising deliberately.
Cambridge International (CIE) — 9709
A different qualification rather than a variant of the English A Level, sat by international students and some independent schools. It is built from separate components — Pure 1 and Pure 3 alongside applied components in Mechanics and Probability & Statistics — so the structure, and the choice available within it, does not map onto the three-paper model above. If you are on 9709, check which components your centre enters you for before you plan revision.
What is the large data set, and do I have to memorise it?
Each board publishes a real data set — weather records, car data, that sort of thing — which your statistics teaching is built around. You do not memorise the numbers. What you are expected to have is familiarity: the column headings, the units, the scale of typical values, and the quirks and missing entries that make some conclusions unsafe.
Marks are lost when a student has never actually opened the thing. Spend an hour with it before the exam. The questions assume you have seen it.
Does the board change how hard the grade is to get?
Grade boundaries are set after each series to account for how difficult that particular paper turned out to be, and boards are held to comparable standards. A paper everyone found hard gets lower boundaries. Chasing an "easier" board is not a strategy; your school chose one years ago, and the marks come from how you practise.
What this means for your revision
- Know your board and your paper structure by name — it tells you what a bad day in one topic actually costs you.
- Pure is the bulk of every specification on every board. It is where the marks are.
- Use past papers from your own board first; other boards are useful extra practice once you have run out.
- On MEI, practise the comprehension paper specifically. Nothing else prepares you for it.
- Check the current specification on the board's own site before you plan — details do change between series, and this article is a starting point rather than the last word.
Same content, different packaging. Once you know which packaging you are sitting, you can stop worrying about the board and start working on the maths.