Education Secretary James Cleverly has said that the plan was "always" to bring down A-level grades this year, having been "generous" during the pandemic.
Nervous students will today pick up their grades in what education chiefs have branded a "transition year".
Overall marks are expected to be lower this year than they have been in the previous two, which saw an uplift as youngsters endured disrupted classes because of the Covid crisis.
But they are still expected to be higher than in 2019, before the huge disruption caused by the pandemic.
This morning Mr Cleverly defended the decision, telling Sky News: "The plan was always to get these grades back to the kind of levels that we were seeing before the pandemic.
"They were more generous during the pandemic and I think that was legitimate."
The Education Secretary continued: "Students might get slightly lower grades than they were hoping and expecting, but we should say the majority of students are getting into the institutions they want to ."
He said learners themselves were "most vocal" in their desire for "fair and robust" qualifications."
Mr Cleverly was told by host Niall Paterson that there are massive regional discrepancies in missed classes - with students in North East missing 15.5% in the North East, compared to 11.6% in London.
"This year we've taken a step back towards normality, we've still got mitigations in place... we've injected a lot of money making sure there's catch up tuition, which will probably benefit the cohort after this one, to be fair."
Education chiefs have previously committed to bringing down grades, branding this a "transition year".
Exam regulator Ofqual said back in September: "We want to get back quickly to the pre-pandemic standard, but in the interests of fairness, and balancing these objectives, we won’t do so in one jump.
"Instead, 2022 will be a transition year to reflect that we are in a pandemic recovery period and students’ education has been disrupted.
"In 2022 we will aim, therefore, to reflect a midway point between 2021 and 2019. In 2023 we aim to return to results that are in line with those in pre-pandemic years."
In the past two years teacher assessments have been used to respond to the "exceptional circumstances" young learners faced, with outbreaks of the virus making exams impossible.
Ofqual said: "Using grades assessed by teachers and checked by centres was the right thing to do in the exceptional circumstances of the pandemic. It meant students could receive grades and move on with their lives, and their grades took account of the disruption caused by the pandemic."
