Exam crisis: What pupils and parents want to know about marks

When will students know whether their A-level grades stand?

Mike Tomlinson's inquiry will produce an initial report about whether the existing grade boundaries should remain within the next seven days. As it will be only a question of converting existing marks to new grades if it is found that the grades are wrong, the administrative work in converting them is not too daunting and could probably be concluded reasonably quickly.

If a student's marks are upgraded so that they meet the requirements of a conditional offer of a university place that they thought they had missed out on, what should they do?

The best advice yesterday was that – if you take a gap year – the university place will be held open for you until next autumn as a result of talks between ministers and university representatives. The Government has also agreed to provide emergency extra funding to universities to take on late students this term.

Were the exam boards and, in particular, the Oxford and Cambridge and RSA board, obeying the code of practice for administering A-levels when they raised the grade boundaries?

The QCA's report into the initial complaints will be published today and Sir William Stubbs, its chief executive, has said it has uncovered "something untoward" in the way the exam was administered. Officials stress this was not to do with the marking which increases speculation that it is linked to the setting of the grade boundaries.

The OCR says it raised them to maintain the standard of an A-level pass to compensate for the fact that the AS levels taken by students at the end of the first year of the sixth form were of an easier standard than traditional A-levels.

But if the inquiry decides that it did this unfairly it would put pressure on the board to take action.

How much of a role did the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, the Government's exams watchdog, play in the decision by exam boards to raise A-level grade boundaries?

This is the big question for the Tomlinson inquiry to tackle in its first week.

Headteachers have claimed that it interfered to avoid a row over grade inflation if too many students were awarded A grades this year. The QCA vehemently denies this, but if the inquiry finds in favour of headteachers it would be a resignation matter because the impartiality of the exam system would have been breached.

Should the QCA have the remit for investigating exam blunders since it is also responsible for validating the system?

Most people think they know the answer to this already – "no" – although the final answer to this question will be given when the second stage of the Tomlinson inquiry is complete.

Is the new A-level system comparable in standard to the old?

This will be the fourth big question that Mr Tomlinson will have to answer. The exam boards say they tried this year to make it so, and that it is the reasonn why grade boundaries were raised. The lateness of their decision to do sosuggests that insufficient care was taken to ensure standards were maintained initially.

Ministerial aides are saying "heads will roll" if headteachers' allegations that the results this year were "fixed" are proved. Who would be at risk?

The most serious allegations relate to the QCA, said to have put pressure on exam boards to change grading boundaries, and the OCR, which received more than double the amount of complaints about marking than last year.