In Pursuit of Perfection: Why aiming for all 9s and A*s this close to exams misses the point

Why the obsession with 9s and A*s misunderstands how success is built

Scrolling through student forums at this time of year, a pattern emerges almost immediately.

“Is it too late to get all 9s/A*s?"

“Can I still get all 9s/A*s with these mock results?”

“I haven’t started revising yet...can I still get all 9s/A*s?”

The phrasing changes. The pressure does not.

The repetition is striking. Not just because of the question itself, but because of what sits underneath it: a quiet assumption that academic success is something that can be accelerated, compressed, and ultimately secured through a final burst of effort.

And yet, it also reveals something important.

At their core, students do care about their results.

The urgency is real.

The concern is genuine.

What appears, at times, as a lack of consistent effort throughout the year may be something else entirely: a misunderstanding of how that success is actually built.

But more than that – why all 9s? Why all A*s? Why this particular fixation on the very top grade, across every subject?

It raises a more uncomfortable question: what do students think the highest grade actually represents?

There is, of course, a practical logic to aiming high. Strong results open doors. They build confidence. They provide options. But somewhere along the way, the top grade, whether that’s a 9 or an A*, has shifted from being a marker of excellence to something closer to a minimum expectation, at least in the minds of many high-achieving students.

And yet, even the most competitive universities –– institutions such as University of Oxford or University of Cambridge –– do not require a full set of top grades. In many cases, a 6 or 7 in English Language (or equivalent) is sufficient to meet entry requirements. GCSEs and IGCSEs function as a threshold: they determine whether an application is considered, not whether it is ultimately successful.

So what happens at the top end, where large numbers of applicants already have exceptional results?

They are not separated by having more 9s or A*s. They are separated by something far less visible: how they think, how they respond under pressure, how they engage with their subject beyond the specification. Interviews, admissions tests, intellectual curiosity, independence of thought...these are the spaces where distinction is actually made.

Which makes the current obsession feel slightly misplaced. If all 9s or all A*s are not the deciding factor, why are students placing so much pressure on achieving them?

Part of the answer lies in how success is presented. Grades are visible. They are easy to quantify, easy to compare, easy to celebrate. A string of 9s or A*s is concrete. It can be posted, shared, validated. The process behind those grades (the habits, the thinking, the slow development of skill) is far less obvious.

So students do what seems logical: they focus on what they can see.

And this is where a deeper misunderstanding begins to emerge, particularly in subjects like English.

There is a persistent belief that grades can be secured through revision alone. That with enough quotes memorised, enough essays practised, enough last-minute effort applied, a top grade can be reached. That performance is something that can be intensified rather than developed.

But English is not a content-heavy subject in the way that others are. It does not reward accumulation in the same way. You can learn quotations quickly. You can revise terminology. But you cannot rapidly acquire control –– control of ideas, of structure, of expression.

A top grade in English is not the result of knowing more. It is the result of doing something with what you know, consistently and deliberately, over time.

It is not moments of brilliance that define it, but sustained control across an entire response.

And that kind of control is not built in the final weeks before an exam. It is built through repeated exposure, through refinement, through making mistakes and adjusting, often long before revision season even begins.

So when a student asks, “Is it too late to get all 9s?”, or “Can I still get all A*s?”, what they are often really asking is:

Can I make up for months (sometimes years) of skill development in a few weeks?

In some subjects, to an extent, the answer might be yes. In English, far less so.

This is not about criticising students. Nor is it about suggesting that teachers are not doing enough. In many classrooms, there is excellent teaching, careful scaffolding, and a clear emphasis on developing skills over time.

But the system itself tends to foreground outcomes over processes. Grades are reported, tracked, celebrated. The underlying competencies they represent are discussed less explicitly. And so students, understandably, begin to reverse-engineer success.

If a 9 or an A* is the goal, then more revision must be the solution.

Except it isn’t.

Because a top grade is not something you revise your way into. It is something you grow into.

And perhaps that is the more useful question to be asking. Not “Is it too late?”, but:

Have I misunderstood what my results actually measure?