Which English A Level is the best?

Hey there. I am intending to study English at A Levels, but my college offers 3 forms of English; Language and Literature in one, Language alone and Literature alone. All of them are from the AQA exam board. At the moment I am more inclined toward the joint one as it could offer the best of both worlds and appears to be more expansive in terms of content. However, I'm afraid universities wouldn't appreciate it is not as in-depth as the other two. I hope to study Journalism, English or History in Uni.

Can anyone help me out here? As in, is their value in the eyes of the top 25 universities different? Which one is generally 'easier' in college? What would you personally recommend?

My other three subjects are History, Government and Political Studies and Economics if that helps.

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 1

The Unique Bloke

There are different types of English?

Reply 2

Captain Hindsight

English Language - Da Derp Dee Derp Da Teetley Derpee Derpee Dumb
English Lit & Language - good and respectable
English Lit - the best english a level. Most respected and prestigious

Reply 3

KnowledgeHunter

Original post by The Unique Bloke

There are different types of English?

There are different types of English A Levels. Lang/Lit, Lang itself and Lit itself. :smile:

Reply 4

Holby_fanatic

One where you can spell English correctly in the title. :wink:

On a serious note, English Literature is considered the best. :smile:

Reply 5

MissMuffin95

English Literature is the best respected by unis, but English Lang and Lit is also perfectly acceptable :smile:

Reply 6

KnowledgeHunter

Thanks for all the responses. I understand that English Lit is the best of the three, with Lang/Lit coming in at second supposedly in the ranking of value. However, can anyone share their experiences with them at A Levels, in terms of difficulty?

Reply 7

battycatlady

English lit is awesome at A-level! You can choose your own texts if you want (we did 'Wuthering Heights' in class, but I did 'Emma' on my own 'cause I'm obsessed with it :P), providing it's something of quality and not 'Twilight' of course :') The unseen texts in the exam are harder than at GCSE, but honestly if you were good at the analysis at GCSE, you will be fine as overall I didn't find the step up too big. It can be a lot of work depending on what teacher you have- I used to get at least two essays set a week :'( The best part is the exam is skills based, so other than remembering a quotes it's a nice exam to revise for if you are naturally good at essay writing. So yeah, lit is a great one to take if it's something you really enjoy :biggrin:

Reply 8

MissMuffin95

Original post by battycatlady

Nice to hear good things about English Lit, lots of people have been saying it's really hard! Did you have to do a lot of coursework for your AS?

Reply 9

battycatlady

missmuffin- I can't really remember what my coursework was tbh. The overall topic for the year was 'the struggle for identity' and you get a list of questions to chose from. You have two pieces and they weren't that long...if I remember rightly I think they had to equal something like 3000 words in total, but I'm not sure. This is for aqa btw, I have no idea what the other exam boards are like for lit. Sorry I'm not being much use- I really can't remember! I don't even know if you had to link it to anything now :')

Reply 10

megan.c

English lit is considered more academic and regarded more highly, I did it for A Level and loved it. English language not so much, but I've heard it can be quite interesting.

It honestly depends on where your interests lie though and what degree you decide to go for - for the English or History degree you have a much better chance with Literature but for journalism you should be ok with Language.

I'd suggest literature just because you'd have all three possible degree subjects open for you that way. DON'T do the joint one. It's not regarded very highly at all, despite what people have said, and you won't go into either aspect in as much detail. At my school, the more academic people were pushed to doing both or one or the other - combined English was reserved more so for people who weren't geared up to university, or came into sixth form from other places so weren't told about how crap it was.