Hardest A Levels: Official 2023 Data

With competition for the best Uni courses always high, it pays to know which are the hardest and easiest A-levels when making your choices.

Choose the worst A-level combinations, and you could find yourself struggling to get the grades you need.

With 112 UCAS points, you can apply to over half of all university courses.

This equates to a B, B, C or A, B, D in 3 A-levels.

But which A-level subjects should you choose?

Thinking of avoiding the hardest?

According to UK Government data, The Top 10 Hardest A Levels for 2023 are:

1. Mathematics (statistics)
2. Environmental Science
3. Accounting and Finance
4. Law
5. ‘Other Sciences’
6. Psychology
7. Biology
8. Music Technology
9. Sociology
10. Computer Science

A-Levels Subject List: Easiest to Hardest Ranked

Ranking A-levels by difficulty isn’t straightforward.

Why?

Not everyone does the same A-levels, and not everyone has the same strengths.

We can’t make a side by side comparison, but we can calculate your chances of doing well.

Different schools might have a slightly different syllabus, but on average the questions in your exam paper will result in the marks below.

Calculating your chances of A-Level success

If 50% of the class get an A*, is it easy? 

Not if the other 50% get an E!

It’s better to understand the ratio of good to poor grades than just look at how many A* there are.

So I had to calculate how many students did well, versus how many did poorly.

Let’s call this the Good:Poor or G:P ratio.

A G:P ratio of 2 means that students were twice as likely to do well than to do poorly.

This isn’t set in stone, but it gives you an idea of your chances of doing well if you pick the subject!

Below I’ve ranked all A-levels in order of difficulty, starting with the easiest.

How I ranked the A-Levels

First, I split grades into good, average and poor, as seen in the table below.

I’ve then taken all the Official UK Government A-level data for 2021/22, and arranged it in order of difficulty, easiest to hardest.

Finally, I calculated the ratio of Good to Poor grades, to give an estimate of how hard or easy it is to do well.

A-Levels Ranked by Difficulty

On mobile? Click here to view the below table as an image.

Clearly if you want to do well in UK A-Levels you need to pick one or more foreign languages.

Any language, except English of course. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
(the same is true for GCSEs as well)

Seriously though, some students do well in languages because:

a) they speak it at home
b) there are smaller class sizes (looking at you, Classical Greek)

So that doesn’t really mean languages are the ‘easiest’ A-levels, but the results speak for themselves.

Take Note: 18 out of the top 20 A-levels for A – A* results are languages

The Hardest A-Levels 2023

The worst A level combination is:

1. Mathematics (statistics)
2. Environmental Science
3. Accounting and Finance
4. Law

Why did I choose these 4?

If you took any of these 4 subjects, you were more likely to do badly than get an A* or an A.

That’s pretty shocking.

In fact, you’re twice as likely to get a D or E in Stats than you are to get an A* or A.

These 4 subjects definitely form the worst, nightmare combination of A levels.

A-level Economics, History and Languages

Aside from maths, studying economics, history and languages has typically been seen as the toughest a-levels.

But the data shows that the amount of risk you take on doing one of these a-levels is either average or very low!

Online forums have typically been filled with students who haven’t achieved the maths a-level they thought they would a year ago, but the numbers tell a different story.

You’re still over twice as likely to do well in a-level maths as your are to do badly.

No tutors required then, but maybe for your a-level statistics you might need one (the most difficult a-level you can choose!).

Still wondering which A-level subjects to choose?

At Acrosophy students often ask us for help in deciding their a-level choices – expecting that we have a magical list of A-level subjects in order of difficulty. As you can imagine the truth is a bit more complicated than each subject being clearly harder or easier than another.

Before we move on, here are a few pointers to keep in mind as you are making your final A-level choices.

Only then do we recommend looking at the difficulty list at the end of the article.

[Editor’s Note: This article was originally published Jan 20th 2019. It has been updated for 2023 but the ‘difficulty list at the end of the article’ is based on pre-2019 data. While this is more reliable than pandemic data, keep in mind it is dated.]

A-levels are not GCSEs

We’re not sure how students can still make this mistake.

There is a reason you only pick 3 or 4 A-levels compared to the pile of GCSEs you have to study for. The area of study and the depth you go into is greatly increased.

Although interest in a subject now likely means you will enjoy the next stage make sure you know what you’re getting yourself in for.

This is especially true if you want to pick an A-level that isn’t available at GCSE level.

Do your own research.

Certain courses require specific A-levels

This may seem obvious but don’t let the fine details catch you out.

Even if you get the best grades possible not having the right qualification could bar you from entry to your uni course choices.

Of course to study English for example you usually have to have English literature under your belt.

What you may not realise without doing your due diligence however is that some universities want English language instead, and some are happy as long as you have either.

Some choices then become less clear.

You may think that to study Economics at university you would need to pick up an Economics A-level at school but in fact this is rarely asked for, only preferred. Instead you need to ensure that you have a Maths A-level (and a good result too!).

Check out this list of university courses to make sure you will have the right qualifications for your desired course and university.

Study a Core Subject

Core subjects, or facilitating subjects are the first to look at when making your A-level choices, especially if you don’t know what to choose.

Facilitating subjects are a group of subjects favoured by universities.

If you include at least two of these in your choices then you will be able to apply to a wide variety of courses.

The following are commonly asked for in entry requirements if you are unsure of what to study:

• The Sciences: Physics, Chemistry, Biology
• Languages: English, Modern foreign and Classical
• Maths
• Geography
• History

Limit Non-Core & Similar Subjects

This will require some research once you have an idea of the course you want to study.

Go to several university websites and read if they have any preferred or even ‘non-preferred’ subjects. Some choices may seem similar to you but don’t put yourself at a disadvantage by ignoring specific university preferences.

This also extends to non-core subjects as well.

While these subjects are all important in their own right, picking only from the following list could damage your application depending on your desired course:

• Media Studies
• Sociology
• History of Art
• Government & Politics
• Law
• Psychology
• Sociology
• Classical Civilisation

It’s Not All About The Grades

We’re all about personal statements here at Acrosophy.

While you won’t be getting far with very poor grades at A-level, on the upper end of the scale straight As don’t necessarily beat lower grade applicants every time.

Universities want to see enthusiastic people joining their team, someone who puts their all into their course and contributes to wider university life.

If this is plain to see and you come across as a well rounded, balanced person you are a much more attractive prospect to the admissions team than someone with no interests and perfect grades.

We’ve helped hundreds of students secure top places with our Personal Statement Service and we feel that working hard on your personal statement can make or break your application.

Checkout our blogs on writing a great personal statement or sign up to our newsletter to get our free personal statement quick start guide.

It’s Not Too Late

Are you reading this article in a panic because you have already submitted your choices?

There is no need to worry.

While your A-level choices will dictate to an extent what you can’t apply to now, that doesn’t mean the choice is made for you. If you failed to study a science A-level then you can’t apply directly to study medicine for example.

But there are a whole host of courses that accept a variety of different A-level combination.

These aren’t weak courses either, they simply draw from multiple disciplines, for example:

• Law
• Marketing
• Business Studies
• Social Work
• Theology
• Philosophy
• Archeology

The list goes on. The take home message is if you are still confused about which career you want to pursue in the future you won’t get locked into one choice at this early stage.

Make sure you pick at least one or two core subjects and your options will stay relatively open until you can make a decision.

How hard is A-level history?

A common misconception among students is that A-Level History is an incredibly difficult subject to tackle. While it’s true that achieving an A* grade might be a challenge, it is by no means an insurmountable task.

In fact, you are almost three times as likely to do well than to perform poorly in A-Level History.

The key to success in this subject lies in your ability to think analytically, write coherently, and engage with historical concepts.

As long as you’re willing to put in the effort and develop these skills, you’ll find that A-Level History can be an enjoyable and rewarding experience. So, fear not, young historians!

Dive into the rich tapestry of the past and let it captivate you, as you embark on this exciting academic journey. Remember that with hard work, dedication, and a touch of enthusiasm, you’ll be well on your way to conquering A-Level History.

Hardest A-Level Subjects List (Pre-2019)

So why look at the list of hardest A-level subjects?

You may think that choosing from the easier end of the list will get you better grades at the end of the day. If you can find this list however then you can bet that universities are already aware of it too.

It is much better to pick what interests you anyway rather than trying to game the system.

Choosing the right subjects for your future career and subjects, which will hold your interest through A-levels and beyond, will put you in a much stronger position to succeed rather than picking arbitrarily from a list.

That being said there are some gender differences which you may want to be aware of when confirming your choices.

Girls seem to excel at subjects which carry more points from coursework whereas boys do better in subjects that focus more on examinations.

In 2018 girls did better at psychology, media and ICT whereas boys did better in languages and chemistry. These results will be influenced by a number of factors however and are liable to change from year to year.

Durham university have actually gone to the effort of analysing both GCSEs and A-levels to see if any were more difficult than the others. The study was done statistically rather than on hearsay and anecdote and the results may surprise you.

One of their main conclusions was as follows:

Read the full report here. [Editor’s note – this link is now dead. I’ve embedded the original PDF, downloaded from the Internet Time Machine (yes, that’s a thing). Also CEM is now at Cambridge, not Durham]

Don’t worry, there’s a still a list of the subjectively hardest A-levels.

The Joint Council for Qualifications have released the top ten subjects which attracted the least A* or A-levels:

Don’t let the above chart put you off however.

Nobody is graded in isolation, so if you have picked ICT, Media and P.E. (the hardest A levels according to the above) your competition will have had similar difficulty in their exams. If you still are curious you can also take a look at this predictive chart released by the Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring. 

It is based on the average student, who gains at GCSE an average of Bs across the board.

Let us remind you at this point that picking ‘easy options’ from the left hand side of the chart would pretty much exclude you from applying to the sciences so be careful how you decide.

As we have mentioned before, you can have all the statistics in the world but pursuing what truly holds your interest will always be the best option.

Good luck with your exams!