> The study's limitations include using grades which were awarded part-way through the school year. I think this explains a lot more than they seem to give it

> The study's limitations include using grades which were awarded part-way through the school year. I think this explains a lot more than they seem to give it credit for. It's already been established in studies that boys will tend to cram for an exam while girls will work steadily throughout the year (hence, why courses that are heavy on coursework favour girls, and those heavy on exams favour boys.) So it's entirely possible that the girls really were ahead of the boys part-way through the year, and the boys crammed for the exams at the end and overtook the girls.