What Is the Hardest A-Level? Maths vs Physics vs Chemistry vs Further Maths
The definitive ranking of the hardest A-Levels — based on pass rates, grade boundaries, student reports, and what universities think. Where does Maths sit?
The question everyone argues about
Walk into any sixth form common room and ask "what's the hardest A-Level?" and you'll get as many answers as there are people. Everyone thinks their subjects are the hardest.
But data exists. Pass rates, A* rates, grade boundary analysis, and university entrance requirements all tell a consistent story.
The data: A-Level difficulty by the numbers
A* rates (approximate, recent series):
| Subject | A* rate (approx) | A*-A rate (approx) |
|---|---|---|
| Further Mathematics | 50%+ | 75%+ |
| Mathematics | 26% | 57% |
| Chemistry | 17% | 52% |
| Physics | 22% | 55% |
| Biology | 13% | 50% |
| History | 15% | 45% |
| English Literature | 8% | 37% |
Further Maths has the highest A* rate — but this reflects the cohort, not the difficulty. Further Maths students are the most mathematically able students in the country, self-selected to take the hardest option. It's like asking whether a world-class athletics track is "easier" because faster runners use it.
Mathematics has a high A* rate because the mark scheme is systematic. Every mark is either right or wrong — there's no partial credit for "almost the right argument" as in essay subjects.
The real difficulty question: difficulty relative to who sits it
Further Mathematics, sat by self-selected students who find pure maths natural: genuinely very hard.
A-Level Mathematics, sat by the full range of students who took it: hard in the middle, very hard at the top end.
Chemistry and Physics: hard conceptually, with significant overlap with Mathematics in terms of required calculation skill.
Biology: high content volume, less mathematical but significant memorisation requirement.
Essay subjects (History, English, Economics without maths): hard in a different way — the mark scheme is interpretive, "correct" is harder to define, and the skill required is verbal rather than quantitative.
What universities think
University offer grades are a proxy for difficulty:
- Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial often require A*AA or A*A*A
- The subjects most commonly requiring A* conditions: Mathematics, Further Mathematics, Chemistry, Physics
- No university requires A* in English Literature for an academic course
This reflects demand. There are more students capable of getting A in English than A* — so universities don't need to use A* as a filter. For Maths and Physics, A* is the meaningful separator.
Is A-Level Maths the hardest?
For most students: yes, in the sense that it requires a specific type of thinking that can't be faked. You can write a reasonable essay on a History topic you've half-understood. You cannot bluff your way through an integration question.
But "hard" is always relative to the individual. A student who thinks algebraically and enjoys abstract reasoning will find A-Level Maths more natural than History. A student who reads widely and argues fluently will find the opposite.
The students who struggle most with A-Level Maths are usually students who approach it passively — waiting for the method to become clear from examples rather than engaging with problems actively. This is why the revision method matters as much as the content.
The honest answer
Further Maths is the hardest A-Level by content depth and abstraction. A-Level Maths is among the hardest because it rewards precision absolutely — one wrong step can cascade into a lost question.
If you're sitting A-Level Maths: the students at the top aren't smarter. They practise differently. More questions, more timed conditions, more honest marking. That's the gap.
Practice makes A*
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