IGCSE Add Math Grade Boundaries Explained

Every results season, students and parents try to reverse-engineer the magic number: how many marks for an A*? Here is how 0606 thresholds actually work, and the more useful question to ask instead.

How Cambridge sets thresholds

0606 is marked out of 160 (two papers × 80, equally weighted). Grade thresholds are set after marking each session, by examiners comparing this session’s scripts and statistics against previous years, so that a grade represents the same standard even when the paper was harder or easier. That is why boundaries move, and why nobody, including your teacher, can tell you the exact A* mark for your session in advance.

What the numbers have typically looked like

Indicative pattern from published threshold tables (always verify against the official Cambridge grade threshold tables for your session — or drop any paper mark into our free 0606 grade checker to see where it sits):

• A* has generally landed in the region of 80–87% (roughly 130–140 of 160)
• A typically mid-60s to low-70s percent (≈105–115 of 160)
• Middle grades step down in roughly even bands below that

A concrete published example — June 2024: A* required 132–135 and A required 105–110 of 160, depending on paper option (source: Cambridge’s official grade threshold table for that series).

Two genuinely useful observations. First, the gap between A and A* is usually 15–20 marks, that’s three or four completed questions, which is why an A* plan is about surrendering nothing. Second, because this is a single-tier subject stretching from E to A*, mid-grade thresholds sit lower than parents expect, a 65% in 0606 is not the same achievement as 65% in a tiered paper, and panicking a capable student over a mock percentage helps nobody.

Why you should train above the boundary

Thresholds drift by a handful of marks between sessions. A student whose practice papers hover at the historical A* line is gambling their grade on which paper they happen to sit. The fix is margin: set your past-paper target at 90%, which absorbs both threshold movement and exam-day friction (an unlucky question, time pressure, one careless slip, see common exam mistakes).

Using boundaries to build a marks budget

Work backwards from your target grade into a per-paper plan:

1. Target A* → aim ~145/160 in practice → at most ~7 dropped marks per paper.
2. Audit your last three marked papers (how to mark them properly): where do your dropped marks come from? Knowledge gaps cluster by topic; technique losses cluster by habit (method marks).
3. Close the biggest cluster first. A student dropping 12 marks across calculus applications gains more from two weeks there than from anything else.

This converts an abstract grade ambition into a countable weekly task, which is exactly how we run revision in the 8-week plan. And if a past session already left you a few marks short of the boundary, that small gap is precisely what a planned resit is for, provided you change what produced it.

The conversation behind the question

When families ask us about boundaries, the real question is usually “is my child on track?” That’s answerable, but with a marked script, not a threshold table. In the 1-hour trial class class, your tutor reviews recent work against actual 0606 mark schemes and gives you a straight answer about the current working grade and the gap to target — one WhatsApp message sets it up.