More than 19,000 pupils have signed a petition branding Pearson Edexcel’s A-level maths paper a “war crime”, after a torrent of complaints that the exam was unreasonably difficult and left students in tears, unable to finish substantial sections and fearing for their university offers.
Petition and student outcry
The petition, which gathered over 15,000 signatures in its first 24 hours, calls for a “thorough review” of the paper and the impact its difficulty may have had on student outcomes across the country. It is addressed directly to the exam board and has been fuelled by testimony from pupils, parents and teachers who say the exam was a “significant increase in difficulty” compared with previous years.
One commenter, a pupil named Eric, wrote that the paper was a “war crime”. Another, Phoebe, said she “had an anxiety attack” during the final 30 minutes of the exam and did not write anything. Yuri added: “This was not a paper. This was a war zone. In fact, the Enigma code was easier to crack than some of those questions.”
A parent named Karen told the Mail: “My son has studied so hard for this exam and came home so deflated by the content and difficulty in the exam. This will have an impact on Uni offers.” Another parent, Denise, wrote in the petition’s comments: “It cannot be right that so many students were distressed during and after the exam and now feel that their university places are at risk.”
Why students found the paper so difficult
The petition details specific reasons for the intensity of the backlash. It states that across schools and colleges, “students who consistently achieved high grades in mock examinations, past papers, and classroom assessments reported leaving the examination hall feeling uncertain and overwhelmed”. Many who had demonstrated strong mathematical ability throughout their studies “found themselves unable to complete substantial sections of the paper within the allotted time”.
Students complained that a third of the paper was locked behind a challenging section that many could not complete, preventing them from advancing to subsequent parts. The petition notes that while demanding questions had appeared in previous exams, they were usually confined to a small section at the end. This year, “many students felt that questions required multiple layers of reasoning, extended algebraic manipulation, and unfamiliar approaches beyond what had typically been expected in previous examination series”.
Popular educational content creator Mr Bicen, who runs a YouTube channel specialising in A-level maths, described the paper as “tough”. He said the “numbers were really messy”, which he believed would have “thrown a lot of people off”. Mr Bicen also observed a lack of “show that” questions compared with previous years, and when they did appear they often included an “unknown”, making it hard for students to verify their answers. He added that the “pacing was quite hard”. A poll conducted by Mr Bicen found that 54 per cent of pupils felt the paper was “worse than expected, bad/awful”.
Impact on university prospects
The high stakes of A-level results for university admissions are at the centre of the anxiety. University offers are often conditional on specific grades; missing an offer by a single grade can mean losing a place. Parents and pupils have warned that a lower-than-expected grade caused by the exam’s difficulty could jeopardise those places. The petition explicitly asks Pearson to “provide transparency” about how grade boundaries are determined, stressing that signatories are not requesting grade inflation but want outcomes to “accurately reflect the exceptional difficulty many candidates experienced”.
Pearson’s response and Ofqual’s involvement
Pearson said that grade boundaries will be set according to the range of marks achieved — the standard process. A spokesperson stated: “We know this is an intense time for students and are committed to ensuring a fair exam experience for all candidates. Every paper is developed with input from experienced senior examiners and rigorously checked to ensure it reflects the course and meets required standards. If a paper is found to be more difficult than previous years, grade boundaries will be set to reflect that. When setting grade boundaries, we review a range of evidence, including statistical data and expert judgment. This process ensures students receive results that fairly reflect their performance and are comparable across exam series.”
Pearson added that grade boundaries are set by senior examiners using a “comparable outcomes framework”, which takes into account paper difficulty, cohort ability and statistical data to ensure fairness and comparability. A harder paper might lead to lower boundaries, the board explained.
England’s exams regulator, Ofqual, said it is aware of the concerns raised by students and will “closely” monitor Pearson’s approach to marking the exam. Its priority, the regulator said, is ensuring that students’ grades are a “reliable indication of what they know, understand and can do”.
Petition’s three demands
The petition sets out three specific actions it wants Pearson to take. First, a review of “the balance of question styles, accessibility, and time demands” to determine whether the paper was consistent with previous years. Second, transparency about how grade boundaries are determined. Third, consideration of the impact that the paper’s difficulty may have had on student outcomes across the country.
Previous exam controversies
The outcry follows a similar petition against Scotland’s Higher Maths paper, which was described as “unrecognisable”, “poorly worded, inconsistently structured, and out of step with every previous paper”. Qualifications Scotland said the paper had been checked for clarity, fairness and suitability; some teachers defended it as challenging but fair. In the case of Pearson Edexcel, the controversy comes after a series of past issues. In June 2025, Pearson faced Ofqual scrutiny over a “replacement” Paper 2 for A-level Maths that students said missed key topics and overlapped with Paper 1. In 2019, Pearson had to withhold results for 78 students and disqualify five after an A-level Maths paper was leaked before the exam. In 2017 and 2018, similar security breaches led to amendments and investigations.
Pearson has also been implementing changes since 2019 to make A-level mathematics papers more accessible, including helping candidates get off to a good start, providing more restart opportunities, unlocking “trapped marks” by assessing standard techniques earlier in the paper, and making language more accessible. For the 2024 papers, the board reported that those changes were effective, with students and teachers generally satisfied and feeling the papers were “very fair”. That stands in stark contrast to the widespread distress reported after this year’s Paper 1.
