AEAs are targeted at the top 10% of students attaining the highest GCE grades, and will provide opportunities for all those students to demonstrate their knowledge, understanding and skills to the full.

These awards should stretch the most able students by providing opportunities for them to demonstrate greater depth of understanding than is required in Advanced GCE. They should also ensure that the most able students in this country are tested against standards comparable with the most demanding in other countries and be accessible to all students. They should help differentiate between the most able candidates particularly in subjects with a high proportion of A grades at Advanced GCE, in order to obviate the need for universities to develop their own entry tests.

They must be based on the Advanced GCE subject criteria where these exist but be independent of individual Advanced GCE specifications. They should, as a general principle, require greater depth of understanding rather than greater breadth of knowledge while requiring application of knowledge in critical analysis, evaluation and synthesis within the subject. They should not require additional teaching and the requirements must go beyond the context specified within GCE subject criteria.

Specifications have an external assessment weighting of 100%.

They will be graded on a two-point scale: Distinction and Merit.