AN AS-LEVEL student from Cwmbran has raised questions over the way grades have been calculated after being left "distraught" due to receiving two Ds and a U.

Coleg Gwent student Abbie Cooper, 17, said her predicted grades were B-B-B - but when she opened her results this morning found she had got Ds in politics and psychology and a U in biology.

Abbie, a member of the Welsh Youth Parliament, said: “Last year I couldn’t attend college a lot due to anxiety and mental health issues but any time I did a mock or a piece of work I’d still get a D, a C or a B.

"The Ds that I did get had been improved to a B and a C at the end of the year, and my predicted at the end of the year was a B-B-B.

“I thought I’d pretty much secured at least a C, but I checked my results this morning and it said U-D-D.”

Abbie said she is now worried about what the results will mean for her university prospects.

“It kind of feels like they just got a number generator or a letter generator and given you a grade based on that,” she said. “It sucks because I need these to apply for university next year because these are my predicteds for university. How can I go anywhere with these?”

She added she knows many people whose grades were lower than they were expecting.

“I’m quite distraught," she said. "But I’m good in the sense it’s out there now and people know and if people are in the same boat they know they’re not alone. I know people who were predicted A*s and they’ve been getting Bs. It’s awful.”

She hopes to appeal her grades.