“Nothing mathematically alarming” - Neil Trivedi on A-level Maths paper 1 exam difficulty

Following concerns from students that the 2026 A-level Maths paper 1 was “unfair”, MyEdSpace Maths teacher Neil Trivedi has told the BBC: “there was nothing in there really, that was mathematically alarming.”

After sitting the exam, students across the UK had expressed surprise at the structure of the paper and how difficult they found it, going as far as to start a petition calling for a review of grade boundaries.

A frequent concern expressed by students was that the wording was different from past papers, and the structure of the examination meant that if they struggled with the early questions, they couldn’t complete those that followed. 

For example, one student told the BBC report, “Very early on, we saw parametric equations, which don't usually come up until a lot later on in the paper. So a lot of the harder questions were already there at the beginning. And then it got to like question 6 and question 7 and the questions got extremely difficult.”

Neil told the BBC “The actual mathematical computation in each question was very standard, and we've seen these kinds of questions before, so there was nothing in there really, that was mathematically alarming, I would say.”

And now adds, “The wording was not any different to previous years. In fact, in a recent video I made where I reviewed the paper, I posted questions of similar wording/difficulty and even highlighted questions in past papers that were much harder to answer than the ones presented in the paper. It’s important to remember grade boundaries are adjusted based on student performance. The 2025 papers were considered on the easier side and so the grade boundaries were much higher.”

Ofqual - the exams regulator for England - told students not to worry and says it's closely monitoring the marking of the paper. Meanwhile, the exam board Pearson confirmed grade boundaries will be set according to the paper's difficulty - as is standard procedure.

As Neil says, “There’s no benefit now to stressing about a paper that has happened. The best thing students can do now is to focus on papers 2 and 3.

If you’re studying Maths and have A-level exams next summer, sign up now for our Year 13 Maths and Further Maths courses, to receive two live lessons a week with Guy Maycock (Maths) and Nick Featherstone (Further Maths).