How to Get an A* in A Level Politics

An A* in A Level Politics doesn't go to the student who has memorised the most facts. The key difference is what you do with that knowledge - whether you have analysed it and build a strong sense of judgement. 

Theoretical knowledge and your examples are important. However, the best grades go to students who use that knowledge strategically to answer the question set and build a persuasive argument.

So what does an A* answer actually look like, and how do you produce one under exam conditions? This guide shows you what the examiners want to see and how to give it to them.

Key Takeaways

To really excel in A Level Politics, you do need a strong foundation of theoretical knowledge and a good bank of examples. To turn those into an A*, you need to:

• Answer the exact question set throughout the essay. A pre-planned essay on the topic won't get you there

• Use accurate, contemporary evidence as part of your argument, not as decoration. It should underline the point you are trying to make

• Don’t overdo the examples. One or two examples that are properly used in a paragraph are more highly rewarded than a list of examples

• Manage your time effectively in the exam - incomplete essays are unlikely to gain the top marks

• Evaluation and judgement is worth around a third of your marks. Argue throughout your essay to reach a clear verdict, not just a final conclusion

• To gain the roughly 70-80% needed for an A*, you need to consistently achieve the top levels in the longer essays

Understanding A Level Politics Grade Boundaries

An A* is the top grade at A Level. In 2026, around 8% of students were awarded an A* (opens in a new tab) for A Level Politics.

• It's awarded on your total marks across all three papers 

• Grade boundaries aren't fixed. They're set after marking, so they move slightly each year

• In 2026 the overall grade boundaries for an A* were:

  • Edexcel (opens in a new tab): 177 out of 252 for the USA route and 179 for the Global Politics route

  • AQA (opens in a new tab): 178 out of 231 (USA route only)

So to get an A* you will generally need to achieve around 70-80% overall.

What does an A* look like? 

To achieve an A* with Edexcel, you would need to achieve:

• About 21 marks on a 30-mark essay, which is mid-Level 4 

• About 17 marks on a 24-mark essay, which is mid-Level 4 

• About 8 or 9 on a 12-mark essay around the Level 3/4 boundary 

To achieve an A* with AQA, you would need to achieve:

• About 7 marks on a 9-mark essay, which is Level 3

• About 19 marks on a 25-mark essay, which is top-Level 4.

On average, then, an A* in A Level Politics is built on secure Level 4 work with some Level 5 answers. It also highlights why one answer that slips to Level 2 is so costly overall.

Know Your Exam Board Requirements

Both Edexcel and AQA have similarities, but they are not identical. It is important that you know which exam board you are using.

They are similar in their Assessment Objectives (AO) - these are the things for which you get marks:

• Assessment Objective 1 (AO1) - knowledge and understanding of political institutions, processes, concepts, theories and issues 

• Assessment Objective 2 (AO2) - analysis, including parallels, connections, similarities and differences and explaining why what you’ve written actually answers the question

• Assessment Objective 3 (AO3) - evaluation of the evidence, including creating arguments, making judgements and explaining how you reached those judgements

There are other similarities too. Both AQA and Edexcel have three exam papers that you will sit. Each exam paper will be two hours long.

However there are also important differences. This affects:

• What topics are in each exam paper that you are sitting

• The types of essays - both the marks available and the question structure is different between AQA and Edexcel

• The layout and structure of the exam, and the maximum marks available

• How your exams are marked - the levels in the mark schemes and the marks awarded are different between boards

Before you start revising, you should ensure that you know:

• What topics you need to cover for each paper

• What the key words for each topic are - you can find these in the Edexcel specification (opens in a new tab)or the AQA specification (opens in a new tab)

• How your exams are marked - the mark schemes and number of marks awarded are different between boards

Effective Revision Strategies for A Level Politics

In A Level Politics, there can be a tendency to focus on learning example after example. A much better revision strategy will:

• Focus on the key examples - choose examples which you can connect to lots of topics and learn them in more detail

• Use past paper questions to help develop analytical (AO2) and evaluation (AO3) skills, which make up around two-thirds of the available marks

This will help you access all of the available marks, not just the knowledge (AO1) marks.

Revision Clocks

This is a great exercise to find out where any gaps in your knowledge are, and it should only take about 15 minutes in total.

• Grab a piece of paper and divide it into 12 segments, like the face of a clock, and pick a topic you want to revise. 

• Using the specification and your textbook, pick 12 sub-headings for this topic and label each segment with a different sub-heading. 

• Set a timer for 12 minutes. When you press ‘go’, give yourself one minute (and one minute only!) to write everything you know about that topic in the segment. 

No cheating! You can’t spend longer than one minute on any segment, and if you run out of things to write, you just have to wait until the minute is up. 

For example, if you were revising the Electoral Systems topic, you could pick 12 sub-headings like - Pros of First Past The Post (FPTP), Cons of FPTP, AMS, STV, CLPS, Pros of Referendums, Cons of Referendums, 2024 General Election, Welsh Election 2026, Scottish Election 2026, 2016 Brexit Referendum, 2019 General Election.

When the time is up, you can review which sub-topics you know plenty about, and where the gaps are that you should focus on for the top grades. You can use this task for any topic, and you can also re-run this task multiple times to check what learning you have remembered.

Review Your Previous Work

You have probably completed lots of essays whilst you have been studying for A Level Politics. Revision time is a good time to get them all out. 

• Look back at the feedback from your teacher on all of the essays that you have completed - can you write a list of any common themes that keep showing up that you need to focus on?

• Also look for the positives - where has your teacher said that a sentence, paragraph or essay was really good? You can use this to identify strengths in your structure and skills, and aim to repeat it in future essays.

This is really helpful to do before you dive into past paper practice and redoing past work.

Redoing Past Work

You can also use your old essays to practice your exam technique.

• Find an old essay that your teacher has marked

• Pick one paragraph - this could be the introduction or conclusion, or it could be one of your main paragraphs

• Using the feedback from your teacher and your revision, rewrite the paragraph to improve it by a level

It is important to do this in timed conditions. If you are re-writing just a part of your essay, this still needs to be done in timed conditions. So, work out how long you would have to write each part of your essay, and stick to those timings.

Practice Past Papers Regularly

Past papers are a crucial tool in your revision toolkit - after all, you are going to be assessed under exam conditions.

Looking at previous questions will help you get used to the different question types. You will also get used to the different command words:

• Edexcel command words include ‘Evaluate the view that’ and ‘To what extent’

• AQA command words include ‘Analyse and evaluate’ and ‘Explain and analyse’

Pick at least one question a week and complete it under timed conditions as your exams approach. This will help you refine your exam technique and ensure you can write a good essay within the time constraints.

Once you have completed a paper, it is important that you spend some time reviewing it. If you skip this step and just complete lots of past papers, you are likely to repeat the same mistakes. Instead, review your work against the mark scheme and identify your strengths and areas for improvement. If you can ask a teacher to review it too, they may be able to give you feedback that you can act on in your next past paper.

Focus on Understanding, Not Just Memorising

To achieve an A*, examiners want to see that you can select the most useful and most relevant examples and apply them exactly to the question asked. That means you need a good bank of examples that can be applied to lots of topics.

• Go through your notes, essays and your textbook, and identify a list of the most important examples. You are looking for broad examples, like ‘The Brexit Referendum’, not narrow examples, like ‘Turnout in the Brexit Referendum’

• Produce a flashcard-sized case study on the key aspects of this example

  • For example, for the Brexit Referendum you could include the background to it, the pressure groups on either side, the turnout, and the consequences. Keep it short and snappy!

• On the other side of your flashcard, list all the relevant topics from your specification that you think you would be able to use this example for and why - each on one line. 

  • For example, the Brexit Referendum could be used for Democracy (direct democracy), electoral systems (referendums, turnout, pros/cons), parties (impact on Conservative Party) and so on

The best examples will be those that you can link to the most topics. The information about the example is AO1 knowledge, and your ability to link it to lots of topics is you developing your AO2 analytical muscles.

Exam Technique to Get a A* In A Level Politics

When you are in the exam, and your adrenaline is pumping, it can be easy to forget or overlook the advice you’ve learnt on exam technique. So, you need to make sure you have done lots of practice in timed conditions with all of your books closed.

What an A* Essay Looks Like

When answering longer essays (30-mark for Edexcel or 25-mark for AQA), an A* essay must:

• Focus on the exact wording of the question - unpack the key words and work out exactly what you are being asked.

  • For example, you could get a question asking about whether FPTP should be replaced with AMS. This is not asking only about the pros or cons of FPTP. It is asking whether AMS would solve any of the problems created by FPTP or not.

  • Don't shoehorn a pre-planned essay into the source - you must answer the exact question set

• Include a short, punchy introduction that sets up the debate, defines a key term where needed, and states a line of argument

• Include paired arguments within each paragraph and direct comparison, not two random points thrown together. There should be a clear line of argument that runs through the whole answer

• Compare and contrast so that both sides of the argument are visible, even though you are arguing that one side is weaker

• Include contemporary evidence, explained as part of the argument. The best answers also place it in historical context

• Include accurate specification vocabulary and integrated thinkers

• Include mini-judgements at the end of each paragraph that build towards the conclusion, so nothing in it comes as a surprise

• Include a strong conclusion 

• Include judgements that are argued, not stated.

Source Questions

Source questions have the same advice as essay questions, plus:

• Identify the competing views in the source and pair them up. This creates the skeleton of a strong essay

• Use the source as a springboard, not a comprehension exercise. Bring in your own knowledge to develop the arguments that it outlines.

  • Analysis and evaluation marks can only be earned for material connected to the source

  • Short quotes from the source at the beginning of each paragraph and when you introduce a counter-argument are really important. Aim for 2-3 words quotes integrated into your own sentence.

Ideas Essays

Ideas essays need similar skills to other essays, but the content is very different:

• You should still have a strong structure - introduction, comparative paragraphs, and a conclusion

• Clearly measure the level of agreement and disagreement. Rather than simply saying they agree or they disagree, use phrases like ‘lots’, ‘some’ or ‘little’ to describe agreement or disagreement between strands and thinkers

• Cover both agreement and disagreement with the question, and cover all the strands

• Do not just describe one strand or thinker per paragraph. Stronger answers compare strands and thinkers to reach a judgement on the level of agreement

• Integrate thinkers. Use their key ideas to support a strand's position, not just to label it

• Use the vocabulary of the idea. It lets you write shorter, sharper answers

Short essays

• No introduction or conclusion is needed - writing these is just a waste of time, and you don’t have a lot of time for these questions

• Aim for roughly three paragraphs

  • For Edexcel 12-mark questions, this should be three direct comparisons

  • For AQA 9-mark questions, this could be three distinct points that you explain and analyse

• Remember that only AO1 and AO2 marks are available. This means you won’t gain marks for including judgement and evaluation

Build AO3 Into Every Paragraph

Your judgement and evaluation is worth around a third of the marks available in longer essays - you cannot just save your judgement for the conclusion.

• Open your paragraph by clearly stating your line of argument on the factor you are discussing

• When you are discussing the weaker half of the paragraph, don’t just state that it is ‘weaker’ - explain why

• In the mini-conclusion at the end of the paragraph, don’t just state your line of argument in a sentence. Instead, explain why the argument you are claiming is stronger actually is - what are the factors that affect it or the context that surrounds it?

Accuracy Traps

It is crucial that the examples that you use in your exam are accurate as well as relevant. Common mistakes that occur due to inaccuracy include:

• Referring to a modern UK "Bill of Rights" when you mean the Human Rights Act 1998. The 1689 Bill of Rights is a separate, historic document.

• Treating the Miller rulings in the UK Supreme Court as evidence that Parliament lost sovereignty when they defended parliamentary sovereignty.

• Saying the Supreme Court's Rwanda ruling challenged an Act of Parliament. It concerned executive policy.

Exams can be stressful, and it is important that your examples are well-rehearsed so that you do not fall into any accuracy traps.

Exam Technique on the Day

An exam requires you to condense two years of learning into a couple of hours - and that can create exam stress. So what do you need to do when you get in there?

• Read all your options first. Pick the question where you can build a line of argument on its exact wording, not just the topic you like best.

• Plan before you write. Know what you'll argue before you start.

• Stick to the timings. Know exactly how long you have for each question and stick to it.

• Write short introductions and conclusions. They frame the essay, but the marks are in the middle.

• Make sure you write your answer in the right place in the booklet. 

Frequently Asked Questions

What percentage do you need for an A* in A Level Politics?

Around 70-80% of the total marks, though boundaries change each year. In 2026, this was 177 out of 252 marks for Edexcel and 178 out of 231 for AQA. 

Is it hard to get an A* in A Level Politics?

It's demanding, because an A* needs sustained high-level work across all three papers. Around 8% of students got an A* in 2026 so it is definitely possible if you follow the advice above.

Should I include my own political opinion?

Give a judgement, not a personal opinion. Take a side and reach a verdict on the basis of your academic understanding of the subject. Arguments built on a student’s own political views produce superficial judgements.

Can I get an A* in A Level Politics if one paper goes badly?

Yes in principle, because the A* is based on your overall total and each paper is worth one-third. But you'd need to make up the marks elsewhere, so consistency is safest.

How long should my essays be?

There's no prescribed length. Instead you should focus on the Assessment Objectives and answering precisely the question set. Focus on the big debates and use precise vocabulary instead of adding more narrative.

Final Thoughts

An A* in Politics comes from what you do with what you know. Answer the exact question, keep a line of argument from introduction to conclusion, and argue your judgements as you go. Support them with accurate, up-to-date evidence and integrated thinkers, then practice until it's automatic. Good luck!

References

Edexcel grade boundaries 2026 (opens in a new tab)

AQA grade boundaries 2026 (opens in a new tab)

Grades awarded in 2026 (opens in a new tab)