[luqman15]

How hard are the Chemistry, Biology and Physics A Levels. Are they as hard as people make them out to be.

Can any one give me advice on this please.

[sn8595]

(Original post by luqman15)
How hard are the Chemistry, Biology and Physics A Levels. Are they as hard as people make them out to be.

Can any one give me advice on this please.

I'm doing all three, and I find them quite manageable. Yes the portion's a little tougher than the GCSEs (and it's meant to be), but, personally, I find it much more fun since the topics are much more specialized, if you know what I mean. Like there's much more detail, and all the GCSE knowledge seems to make much more sense now!

Hope this helps!

[tinkerbell_xxx]

(Original post by luqman15)
How hard are the Chemistry, Biology and Physics A Levels. Are they as hard as people make them out to be.

Can any one give me advice on this please.

i always liked chemistry at gsce, so i took it for a level. I found it really hard & ended up dropping it after the Jan exams :/

it just depends on how good you are at the subject and how well you can get your head around some of the concepts

[Abc1234x]

(Original post by luqman15)
How hard are the Chemistry, Biology and Physics A Levels. Are they as hard as people make them out to be.

Can any one give me advice on this please.

I take physics. I don't really like it- but then I have never really liked physics. But, if you like that sort of thing, then fair enough. In terms of how difficult it is, it isn't that bad, I suppose. My teachers aren't amazing- so i had to pretty much teach it to myself and that's not really as bad as it sounds as long as you have a good textbook to learn from. You just need to make sure you understand all the concepts inside out and then do lots of questions and exam papers. If you put the work in, you'll be fine.

[magap]

It depends what board you're on. Bio and chem i'm on aqa, and it's not as bad as I thought it was going to be. There's a lot in terms of volume, but i don't find it that challenging. It's still harder thatn gcse, just saying.

Physics i'm doing advancing physics (B) with OCR and i think that's difficult mainly because the textbook's rubbish. The questions have different possible answers but they're only looking for one, so sometimes it's hard to get the marks. Again, it's not that bad. I'm dropping it next year (hopefully) but carrying on bio and chem, only dropping it because i can't do 5 a levels too much work, and because i don't like it as a subject.

[Misskatie7]

i think chemistry is the hardest.

[TheGrinningSkull]

With physics, I'm sure you can manage without maths, although it's recommended that you take both together. If you struggle with maths then you may struggle with physics as you need to get your head around a lot of concepts and equations.

[Becca94]

Out of them three i only took biology. To be honest, it took me a while to actually get the work so when i did the first exam i didn't do very well, but now i'm doing okay. For some people they got it straight away, there's just alot of stuff to remember.

[jordanelouise]

I have done Chemistry and Biology with WJEC exam board. I would say the jump up from GCSE is quite big, but if your actually interested in the subjects and don't mind reading up around the subject and putting the effort in then your not going to find it hard! The work load is definitely greater than GCSE too but it's all very manageable

[EmilyBea]

biology's fine, just a lot of content to learn. As for physics and chem, they're a bit trickier and a lot more maths based, but waaaaaaay more interesting than gcse at the same time. i would say its perfectly manageable, but you got to work hard!

[Roshniroxy]

I'm doing chemistry at AS level currently, my exam board is OCR. I personally find it quite hard, but if you're good at it now and good at exams and exam techniques then you'll be fine. Remember don't do it for the sake of doing it, do it because you want to do it. I fall into the first category and trust me when you have no enthusiasm or passion for a subject it becomes difficult to try hard at it.

[sahjan]

Im doing bio and chem, and biology is definitely easy...when people say it's hard, it's only because there's so much to remember...Its actually extremely easy to understand. The only hard part is memorising it.
If you know the content, the exam is a peice of cake.
Chemistry takes practice and time to get your head around...its interesting but I'm dropping it next year because I just cant get my head around the concepts

...But that's AQA, idk about other exam boards :P

[abzy1234]

It really depends on you, it is kinda subjective. I did chemistry and physics. I loved chemistry, because in GCSE it was really watered down; whereas in AS you can finally become more accurate and detailed with many of the chemical theories and applications. Some of the concepts are challenging to get your head around, but once you do that, and with a bit of practice; it shouldn't be too challenging.

Physics on the other hand... Massive jump. Really challenging in some aspects, such as quantum phenomena etc. For me it required a lot more practice and a lot more time.

But as I said, depends on you; make sure you enjoy the science subject, as with any of your Alevels. It'll require a lot of work, but welcome to Alevel

Good luck

[Contrad!ction.]

Of the three, I do physics. I'd say it's got quite a lot of maths in it, so you need to get used to rearranging equations. They want you to explain some things in context as well: that context is designed so that you have to apply your understanding to a practical problem - this prevents learning model answers and reeling them off, although generally there's only a few key facts they can check, they'll make you talk about a musical instrument or a car instead of just 'a particle's energy'.

(Original post by magap)
Physics i'm doing advancing physics (B) with OCR and i think that's difficult mainly because the textbook's rubbish. The questions have different possible answers but they're only looking for one, so sometimes it's hard to get the marks. Again, it's not that bad. I'm dropping it next year (hopefully) but carrying on bio and chem, only dropping it because i can't do 5 a levels too much work, and because i don't like it as a subject.

I'll back you up on this one. Our school doesn't bother giving us the textbook. Quite frankly, the whole syllabus is crap. The exams seem to include context for the sake of context, which leads to some quite bizarre questions. I take it you're doing G492? Have a look at June '09 10aii. And there have been similar odd questions.

The 'different possible answers' thing especially happens in 'explain' questions. You try to explain how something is inversely proportional to something else using equations, they'll want words. You use words, they'll want equations.

[britchick]

I do Physics without Maths. Nobody even warned me when I was choosing my A-level subjects that I should take Maths with it. I wish they had because if I did Maths it would have made A-level Physics so much easier for me.

[luqman15]

Do you think i should go for it then, I have got C/B in core and in additional i think the way is't going an A.

[James A]

Chemistry is hard, but is do able.

Biology is hard, especially if your doing AQA because so much emphasis is place upon exam technique.

[Intriguing Alias]

A lot of people speaking about them while only referring to to AS-Level. AS-Levels Sciences are all quite manageable, I hear Chemistry A2 is a fair bit harder and Physics can be a bit of a pain (getting an A* is definitely very very tough in my experience).