// BBC UK NEWS — CRONACA
Which area has the best grades? Key takeaways from Scotland's exam results
Pupils at Broughton High School in Edinburgh received their 2026 Qualifications Scotland grades
The results are in. More than 130,000 Scottish students have found out how they did in their exams.
From the gender split to council-level trends, BBC Scotland has been digging into the numbers behind the results.
Here are five things we have learned from the 2026 Scottish exam results.
The number of pupils achieving an A, B or C grade at National 5, Higher and Advanced Higher has increased slightly on last year.
The figure for the National 5 qualifications, taken by the majority of pupils at 15 or 16, rose from a 78.4% pass rate in 2025 to 79.2% this year.
The rate for Higher increased from 75.9% to 76.7%, and the rate for Advanced Higher rose from 76.7% to 77.6%.
The gap between the level of results achieved by students in the least deprived parts of Scotland and those in the most deprived closed a little in this year's figures - but still remains significant.
The "attainment gap" is a measure of the difference between the grades of the top 20% better-off students and those who live in the bottom fifth of the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD).
The way SIMD is used has been changed this year which resulted in some revision of previous figures.