A Level Business 9609 Paper 1 Business Concepts 1 — May/June 2026

After marking May/June 2026, Cambridge set the thresholds for this paper as follows — the raw mark out of 40 required for each grade. A grade A took 36 marks, which is 90% of the paper.

Grade A* is deliberately absent: Cambridge does not set one for an individual component. A* is awarded on the overall syllabus threshold across the papers you were entered for — for this paper that is 12 + 22 + 32 + 42, or 12 + 22. Every 9609 series, with the syllabus thresholds →

Figures re-keyed from Cambridge’s published threshold table for this series.

Cambridge publishes the question paper and mark scheme for 9609/12/M/J/26 (9609_s26_qp_12) itself — through your school and through Cambridge’s own site. They are © Cambridge University Press & Assessment, so Quanta does not host them, and this page describes the paper rather than reproducing it.

What Quanta does instead is the part the PDF leaves to you: sit this paper online and have it marked against the assessment-objective grids in that mark scheme, objective by objective, with the reasoning shown for every mark. Free, and no download to print.

If what you want from the mark scheme is to understand how it awards marks, the grids behind every 9609 question are set out here.

Every part of a 9609 paper is marked against a grid that splits its tariff between the four assessment objectives — a 12-mark question is 2 knowledge, 2 application, 2 analysis and 6 evaluation. Summing those grids across the whole paper gives the split below. How the grids work, and what each objective demands →

AO1 Knowledge and understanding carries 14 of the 40 marks (35%). On a Business paper that is usually where candidates lose most — examiner reports say the same thing every series: marks are dropped not for lack of knowledge but for not applying it to the case, or for describing where a judgement was asked for.

Every part of this paper is labelled with the 9609 syllabus topic it tests, read against its published mark scheme. Section B is a choice of two essays, so each option counts at half its marks here — the topics add up to the 40 marks you actually sit.

Every 9609 question sorted by topic, across all the papers →

The tariff of a 9609 question fixes its grid, so the same technique works on every question of that size. This paper sets:

• 1 × 12-mark12-mark 'evaluate' questions →
• 1 × 8-mark8-mark 'analyse' questions →
• 1 × 5-markShort-answer questions (2, 3 and 5 marks) →
• 3 × 3-markShort-answer questions (2, 3 and 5 marks) →
• 3 × 2-markShort-answer questions (2, 3 and 5 marks) →

Free guides covering the areas this paper leans on, heaviest first:

Cambridge publishes past papers and mark schemes through its own site and through schools — this page describes the paper rather than reproducing it. Inside Quanta you can sit this paper as it is set: the case study beside the answer boxes, one question at a time, and every answer marked automatically against the published mark scheme, objective by objective, with the reasoning shown — and your teacher can adjust any mark.

Component 12 from other series — same structure, same style, useful once you have used this one up:

All Cambridge International A Level Business (9609) past papers →