[James A]

(Original post by sahajkaur)
I agree that sometimes you can BS your way though english but set texts have to be known thoroughly in my experience, although I have only done GCSE so can't say much.

As a broader point, personally I found English a lot harder than I found maths or sciences but teachers and fellow students still regard me as a bright pupil and similarly I know people who are very good at english but struggle with sciences but that doesn't mean they're not smart either. In a similar way I think it's unfair to berate and belittle other people's intelligence just because they are not as good as you are at certain things which applies here too. Who is anyone to stand up and say I have a better grade than you in a different subject so I must be smarter. As Einstein said 'If you judge a fish on its ability to climb trees it will live its whole life thinking it's stupid.'

I can relate myself to this.

I consider myself much brighter in the sciences and maths compared to English, even despite me getting two A's for English lit and language.

[member963009]

(Original post by James A)
I can relate myself to this.

I consider myself much brighter in the sciences and maths compared to English, even despite me getting two A's for English lit and language.

Same, I had to work really really hard to raise my grades in English contrary to people's belief that it is just raw natural talent. I'll see when i get my results but I'm hoping for A/A* according to my efforts that I have put in.

[tpxvs]

I got an A* in Eng lit at GCSE. and AA in gcse science.

So according to you're logic I should be able to breeze through the science exams? I've done a levels in science and got As in them but an A* in maths.. dont think it works like that!

[member963009]

(Original post by tpxvs)
I got an A* in Eng lit at GCSE. and AA in gcse science.

So according to you're logic I should be able to breeze through the science exams? I've done a levels in science and got As in them but an A* in maths.. dont think it works like that!

I agree! What I hate about this thread is that people just arent willingly to accept that they're good at different things, rather they have to go out of their way to prove that their way makes them smarter smh

[lebron_23]

I disagree.. Both subjects require different types of knowledge.

[MAD Phil]

(Original post by Dalek1099)
Have you had a look at that?-General Studies is the hardest,yet universities don't like it,it seems that that is just totally stupid,general studies isn't the hardest A-Level.The best statistic is how many people get A/A* providing that a larger amount of people take it.

Like I said, I'm not convinced that the statistical analysis should be relied on. I was merely disagreeing with your earlier claim that

(Original post by Dalek1099)
... I still understand how much harder English Lit is and simplistic statistical knowledge can you tell that.

The high ranking of General Studies surprised me, too, but I didn't comment on it as I know nothing about what is involved in A-Level General Studies. (In my day, GS was an unexamined lark at the end of the day.) I was also surprised by PE coming above Eng Lit (though I couldn't resist mentioning it).

But my main worry is that they got their ranking by averaging the results of five different tests, one of which gives ridiculous results - it finds Further Maths to be one of the easiest subjects! Easier than English Literature, easier than Business Studies, even easier than Maths. Another test finds Maths and Further Maths to be equally easy. If you eliminate such silliness, I suspect that Further Maths would be at the top of the table, as you would expect for the only "Further" A-Level.

As I say, I don't put too much reliance on the statistics. But the authors of the study seem pretty confident - they suggest that the harder subjects (mainly sciences, Maths and foreign languages) should be given a greater weighting in school league tables and in the UCAS process.

[Coke1]

Ok, to CONCLUDE

Being good at Eng Lit requires being creative, imaginative with your interpretations, but at the same time sophisticated, having flow to your essays, and being able to dig for meanings...

Science/Maths involves using a different part of your brain....the more mechanical side you could say...but that also requires having immense knowledge to be able to perfect it.

At the end of the day, if you get an A* for Eng Lit, you are clever. If you get an A* for Maths/Sciences you are clever.

[MAD Phil]

(Original post by Dalek1099)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/ed...athematics.stm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/ed...ml/english.stm

These subjects are among the top taken subjects at A-Level,meaning that a good range of people take it yet a lot less people get the high grades in English,meaning it is definitely harder.

The difference is so large that noone can really deny it,of course for lesser taken subjects like Media and Further Maths ,this system would be inadequate because not enough range of people take it.

As I've explained to you before, (post #348, but you just ignored my arguments and called me stupid - post #406), you can't just say the subject with the smaller proportion of high grades is the harder.

If you look at the barcharts you linked to again, you'll see that that for English follows a classical Normal Distribution - it starts with low frequencies for high grades, goes up to a peak, and then tails away again. Eng Lit examiners presumably know that that is what distributions "ought" to look like. So they make sure their exams produce just such a distribution. The "gatekeeping" function of the exam is efficiently performed, as few people have the grades to get into oversubscribed Eng Lit courses at university.

The distribution for Maths is much less like a normal distribution. It looks much more as if the examiners have specified certain objective skills to be tested, set grade boundaries accordingly, and then accepted whatever the objective results of the exams turn out to be.

[alj123]

(Original post by MAD Phil)
There is no point criticising people just because they choose different words from you.

There are exceptions, but the usual pattern in English is that one-syllable words form comparatives using "-er", words of three syllables or more use "more", and with two-syllable words, you have a free choice.

Chill I wasn't even commenting to you. And I dot need to be told that, 'stupider' isn't a word, I was only correcting the grammar, now you're the one making a big deal. I wasn't criticising them it was merely a joke.

[Dalek1099]

(Original post by MAD Phil)
As I've explained to you before, (post #348, but you just ignored my arguments and called me stupid - post #406), you can't just say the subject with the smaller proportion of high grades is the harder.

If you look at the barcharts you linked to again, you'll see that that for English follows a classical Normal Distribution - it starts with low frequencies for high grades, goes up to a peak, and then tails away again. Eng Lit examiners presumably know that that is what distributions "ought" to look like. So they make sure their exams produce just such a distribution. The "gatekeeping" function of the exam is efficiently performed, as few people have the grades to get into oversubscribed Eng Lit courses at university.

The distribution for Maths is much less like a normal distribution. It looks much more as if the examiners have specified certain objective skills to be tested, set grade boundaries accordingly, and then accepted whatever the objective results of the exams turn out to be.

This makes English Lit harder than Maths because you need more than just the skills,you have to be in the top so many percent to pass,where as for Maths,you only need to know some of the skills-the English lit system means that not everyone,who has the sufficient skills,will get the top grades.It is harder to get an A or A* in a subject,where you have to be in a even lower percentage of the population in that subject,to pass.

[Coke1]

(Original post by Dalek1099)
This makes English Lit harder than Maths because you need more than just the skills,you have to be in the top so many percent to pass,where as for Maths,you only need to know some of the skills-the English lit system means that not everyone,who has the sufficient skills,will get the top grades.It is harder to get an A or A* in a subject,where you have to be in a even lower percentage of the population in that subject,to pass.

This.

[MAD Phil]

(Original post by Dalek1099)
This makes English Lit harder than Maths because you need more than just the skills,you have to be in the top so many percent to pass,where as for Maths,you only need to know some of the skills-the English lit system means that not everyone,who has the sufficient skills,will get the top grades.It is harder to get an A or A* in a subject,where you have to be in a even lower percentage of the population in that subject,to pass.

I think you are making my point for me.

Remember, the claim that is being discussed is whether people getting A* in Eng Lit are therefore smarter than those getting A* in maths or sciences. You say they obviously are, because a smaller proportion of candidates in English Lit get that grade. I haven't argued the case either way; I have just said that your argument doesn't work. And it doesn't.

If it did, I could similarly argue that people who win £1,000,000 on the lottery are even smarter, because they not only have the skills to fill in their ticket, but have also been ranked in the top 0.00001% of the entrants (or whatever).

That argument would be incredibly silly, as the criteria for success at the lottery are totally different from those in an exam, and in particular the lottery is designed to make sure that only 0.00001% of entrants win £1,000,000. Your argument is not so obviously silly, but it is of the same logical form, so it fails.

The proportion of candidates that get an A* is decided by the examiners. They can make that decision completely independently of any objective level of difficulty of the subject. If an exam board decides to give a lower proportion of A*'s to GCSE candidates than to A-Level candidates in the same subject, that doesn't make the GCSE harder than the A-Level, fcol.

[england100]

To be fair to the poster the following would support s/he: http://firstclassgraduates.wordpress...in-discussion/

Clearly from this article one can conclude that maths is the easiest degree. Although i do maths a-level, i think people over rate it a bit to much. Whether the same can be said for science, i'm not sure as i don't study it, but it may be the case.

[MAD Phil]

(Original post by england100)
To be fair to the poster the following would support s/he: http://firstclassgraduates.wordpress...in-discussion/

Clearly from this article one can conclude that maths is the easiest degree. Although i do maths a-level, i think people over rate it a bit to much. Whether the same can be said for science, i'm not sure as i don't study it, but it may be the case.

Another example of the same logical mistake that Dalek has been making.

(At least he has the excuse that he's currently doing GCSE, which I doubt applies to the authors of that article)

[Dalek1099]

(Original post by MAD Phil)
I think you are making my point for me.

Remember, the claim that is being discussed is whether people getting A* in Eng Lit are therefore smarter than those getting A* in maths or sciences. You say they obviously are, because a smaller proportion of candidates in English Lit get that grade. I haven't argued the case either way; I have just said that your argument doesn't work. And it doesn't.

If it did, I could similarly argue that people who win £1,000,000 on the lottery are even smarter, because they not only have the skills to fill in their ticket, but have also been ranked in the top 0.00001% of the entrants (or whatever).

That argument would be incredibly silly, as the criteria for success at the lottery are totally different from those in an exam, and in particular the lottery is designed to make sure that only 0.00001% of entrants win £1,000,000. Your argument is not so obviously silly, but it is of the same logical form, so it fails.

The proportion of candidates that get an A* is decided by the examiners. They can make that decision completely independently of any objective level of difficulty of the subject. If an exam board decides to give a lower proportion of A*'s to GCSE candidates than to A-Level candidates in the same subject, that doesn't make the GCSE harder than the A-Level, fcol.

Your argument suggests that people,who take English Lit,are worse at their subject than maths students are at Maths and if they are words at their subject,then Eng Lit must be a harder subject to get the level of a/A*,where as Maths is easy because almost 50% get A/A* and this means you only have to be just above average to get an A.The lottery is a subject argument because entrants aren't picked on their exam ability but if their were a maths lottery,with the best maths entry picked,then it would be harder than all the a-levels.Here is a simple example for you enter 2 races,with people of similar ability and have to get in the top 8 to win English Lit and top 25 to win Maths and all the entrants are the same level and you are the same level,at both races.Ask your maths teacher if you had to be in the top 10% in one subject and in the top 40% in one subject,which one is easier and the difference is so large,it can't be argued that English Lit is extremely harder than Maths.You can't compare A-Level to GCSE because people work harder,to reach a higher level in A-Level than GCSE but if people,did the same work at GCSE as they did A-Level and more people got A* in the A-Level,then the GCS would be easier when took at that age.

[madders94]

It's a different type of intelligence - I'm very good at essay subjects but I really struggle with the maths and the sciences; it's not that I find one harder than the other but I have more interest in essay subjects, I find that my mind responds better to essay subjects and I put more effort into studying those essay subjects

You can't really compare the two - neither subject is more difficult than the other.

[PhilipMiti]

(Original post by Dalek1099)
This makes English Lit harder than Maths because you need more than just the skills,you have to be in the top so many percent to pass,where as for Maths,you only need to know some of the skills-the English lit system means that not everyone,who has the sufficient skills,will get the top grades.It is harder to get an A or A* in a subject,where you have to be in a even lower percentage of the population in that subject,to pass.

It seems that the word 'Difficulty' or 'harder' implies that intelligence is necessary to succeed in it, from the arguments i have read. So the more intelligent you are, the less difficult that person finds the exam/ the easier the exam is. Now, consider that even neuroscientists so not know what intelligence really is or for that matter know how to measure it. They've tried. you can use the Intelligence Quotient (IQ testing) and problem solving test or whatever. You'll find the IQ test doesn't actually quite test intelligence. Neuroscientists have learnt that actually, there are other factor that must be taken into account. So to "measure" intelligence, factors which may be taken into consideration including, Abstract thought, Communication Creativity, Emotional intelligence, g factor, Intelligence quotient, Knowledge, Learning, Memory, Problem solving, Reaction time, Reasoning, Understanding and Visual processing and there may be others that we don't know yet. Now there are ways of trying to measure some of these attributes. The reason i say trying is because, it may not actually be the way to measure it. How does someone measure learning, or creativity or abstract reasoning? To be less abstract, lets look at memory. You can try and use a method such as remembering how many objects someone can remember in a given time having them see the objects only for a short time. But think, does that actually measure memory?; Let alone intelligence. Does the measure of the speed of a tennis serve actually measure ability to play tennis? i think not.

I'm not saying that there is not correlation between high IQs and succcess at GCSE, for example. What i'm saying is that we don't know if there's causation. For instance, i could find a correlation between number of females wearing short skirts and the strength of their tennis serve. this doesn't mean that girls who wear short skirts will be good at tennis, because they wear short skirts. It may seem as though there's causation but actually there isn't. The actually reason is because you're at the leisure centre and the girls who wear short skirts do so because they play tennis alot and it is part of their tennis gear.

So we don't know what intelligence is or exactly how to measure it. doesn't this surely show that someone who gets A*s in their english and science exams get's those grade because they KNOW HOW to do those exams to do well in them. Some have to be taught how, other's do it naturally. Some don't understand how? this doesn't test intelligence. neither do it test difficulty of the exam. It tests if the student knows how do to well in the exam and has done it.

So in this case, a smaller percentage of people who have done English whatever it was, know how to ace the exam/do what they need to ace the exam. Where as a larger percentage of maths students know how to ace the exam/do what they need to ace the exam. the statistics don't say squat about the intelligence of individuals.

[a.partridge]

(Original post by Dalek1099)
Your argument suggests that people,who take English Lit,are worse at their subject than maths students are at Maths and if they are words at their subject,then Eng Lit must be a harder subject to get the level of a/A*,where as Maths is easy because almost 50% get A/A* and this means you only have to be just above average to get an A.The lottery is a subject argument because entrants aren't picked on their exam ability but if their were a maths lottery,with the best maths entry picked,then it would be harder than all the a-levels.Here is a simple example for you enter 2 races,with people of similar ability and have to get in the top 8 to win English Lit and top 25 to win Maths and all the entrants are the same level and you are the same level,at both races.Ask your maths teacher if you had to be in the top 10% in one subject and in the top 40% in one subject,which one is easier and the difference is so large,it can't be argued that English Lit is extremely harder than Maths.You can't compare A-Level to GCSE because people work harder,to reach a higher level in A-Level than GCSE but if people,did the same work at GCSE as they did A-Level and more people got A* in the A-Level,then the GCS would be easier when took at that age.

I guess you don't do either of the these subjects as that was not only a terrible argument but it was terribly written as well.

[a.partridge]

(Original post by madders94)
It's a different type of intelligence - I'm very good at essay subjects but I really struggle with the maths and the sciences; it's not that I find one harder than the other but I have more interest in essay subjects, I find that my mind responds better to essay subjects and I put more effort into studying those essay subjects

You can't really compare the two - neither subject is more difficult than the other.

I do find it strange that people are so willing to polarise the distribution of intelligence so unnaturally into two discrete 'skill sets'...

- the science/maths person who doesn't know how to write an essay and is
somehow incapable of forming a succinct verbal argument.

- the essay writing humanities person that can't solve an equation and doesn't
care as learning how would merely stifle their unbound creativity.

I do hard science at university and the vast majority of my friends that do a science degree don't do it because they found writing essays hard, merely they found science interesting. I have a friend doing a classics degree who changed her mind at the last minute after starting a maths degree. These are the people I respect - there is no excuse for an educated person to be lacking substantially in either field.

I find myself constantly offended by the notion regularly proliferated by arts students that an aptitude for once specific skill is indicative of a deficit in another, as if every person has a pre-determined amount of talent to be allocated at birth. To me this is completely untrue and illogical and a mere excuse to alleviate shame at having failed to achieve dominance in a field of objective marking criteria and provable tasks. It is far easier to protect your ego when you hide behind the cloak of subjective marking, making it a preferable retreat for the intellectual prevaricator.

[Foghorn Leghorn]

(Original post by The Doggfather)
It's hard to compare the subjects, completely different and require different skills. It's why you'll rarely see someone doing something like English Lit, History, Chemistry, Maths! But I definitely think that Sciences are much harder, it's not just about memorising large pieces of information, there's alot of application too.

Neither is physics or sciences.