I find it laughable that humanities students should think their respective subjects 'harder' than the any of the sciences. In not all, but many cases (I’m talking averages) people pick their A-levels based on how they performed at GCSE. Those who perform well choose at least one science (often two or three). As such those with better GCSEs on average tend to founder in science classes. Those who choose humanities mostly, but not always, select them since they feel the sciences will be too hard. Since the exam boards like to keep the % As they give out at roughly 20% you find that sub standard students receive As. Moreso, getting an A reflects how well you have performed relative to some similar version of yourself. Students with approximately equal ability can be found in subjects with roughly the same difficulty.
Take a walk around the average Chem class and you will be hard pushed to find someone who did not walk away from their GCSEs clutching a handful of A*s. The same cannot be said for subjects like sociology. It is wrong that you find essentially the best students in classes such as Maths, but that some students achieve poor grades by virtue of being out competed by other good students. I cite a story of one guy who has 22 A-levels. As in something like 20 of them, then a C in Physics and a B in Chem. This culture of people taking easy subjects, getting an A to make themselves feel good and then arguing with scientists that their subject has academic prowess has got to stop. They know deep down that their 3 As in written subjects would easily be converted to 3 Cs had they taken 3 sciences. Equally they know deep down that they avoided the sciences. Or else they convince themselves, not that they avoided them, but that they just never considered them. Of course never considering them is tantamount to saying that they were wildly more difficult and so did not even factor into consideration.
Humans are funny things, you will not necessarily remember ruling out the sciences, probably because there was no long and drawn out consideration process. The human body makes a split second decision that those subjects are too hard and forevermore partitions them from consideration. People exploit the fact that subject difficulty is subjective. Why take the sciences and get irrefutable proof that you’re not good enough when you can take sociology, get an A and have the truth forever concealed. Of course if you genuinely are good that’s bad luck, the ceiling is so low that in humanities it will not distinguish between an excellent student and a very good student. I am in favour of acknowledging true academic merit and am in disbelief that people continue to mount these vulgar assertions that the humanities in any way compare to the sciences and mathematics. I also am repulsed by the idea that someone who has 3Bs in 3 sciences is rejected over someone with 3 As in say Sociology, History and English for say a place at Oxbridge. I've met all too many people that have say 3 As and the rest Bs at GCSE, then as if by magic 3 As at A-level. Then, you ask of the subjects in which these were obtained and sit back and laugh, smugly.
I propose a thread to settle this question. I propose a survey. You will have to state GCSE grades, A-level subjects and A-level grades. I am myself due to start at Oxford, took 3 science A-levels and possess many A*s at GCSE. Funnily enough I had to work hard, continuously, to get A*A* in science GCSEs, but did not revise AT ALL (no embellishments) for English GCSE and got A* Eng Lit and A* Eng Lang. It is people like I who have the irrefutable capacity to comment on the relative difficulty of the humanities and the sciences. Lastly, the government is bringing in some legislation that will recognise math and the sciences as more difficult than other subjects. By recognising their difficulty, anyone without a science A-level will find it difficult to get into a half decent university. This is aimed at combating those who try to avoid science subjects, since numbers taking these subjects are dwindling. Interesting to know if anyone has a counter argument.