[yennibubs]

(Original post by tssf_skye)
Hey, so i'm in year 11 and i'm going to 6th form next year.

Currently my options are Chemistry, Biology, English lit & lang and Geography.

I'm hoping for an A* in chemistry and hopefully an A in Biology, but tbh it could be a B i didn't do a hell of a lot of biology revision tbh. My physics is probably a B but i got an A* in the ISA.
Honestly how hard are science? I love chemistry and want to go into medical/geographic/scientific field so i know i need 2 sciences. I do like biology and i find it interesting but i also find it hard, but i guess it's just a case of putting the work in.
Sciences are known as being hard as i've heard, and i want to know how big the step up from GCSE is and what is the reality of getting good grades? I want to do well in my subjects because otherwise they could risk my future so yeah :-)

I'm prepared to put as much work in as needed, bearing in mind i do have a summer job that could turn long term though :-)

I got A's for all sciences and maths at GCSE. They were my strongest subjects.
For alevels, I took Maths, Physics and Biology, and ended up getting D's for the science subjects.

Biology was a pain for me because it wasn't much about understanding the subject, but more about how much you can memorise. If you're one who is bad with memorising scientific words and processes, it's probably going to frustrate you a bit. It's not something I enjoyed at all. I thought biology was the biggest jump from GCSE to Alevels. The things you learn in GCSE don't really give you enough of a foundation in my opinion.

Physics however, was more enjoyable for me. It is very maths-based and there's a few formulas you had to learn but they weren't extremely long ones. If you're good at rearranging formulas, then half of the physics questions would be OK. The other half of papers are theory-based, and they're not easy to grasp as things are hard to visualise in most cases.


All in all, it depends on the teachers and how much effort you put into studying. A few physics topics have come up in my undergraduate degree (I did civil engineering), and the lecturer at my uni taught it so well, that I learnt those I struggled with at alevels, in just one lecture.

[RobertWhite]

I found A levels easier than GCSE. I got 4 A's, 6 B's and 1 D at GCSE and A*A*A at a level. They were in psychology, biology and philosophy but I don't think GCSE are a good indicator at all.

[Redheaded_Dancer]

Well in all honesty it depends on how much work you put into the subject and how good you are at them.
The three sciences are probably about equal in how difficult they are but I know a lot of really Mathsy people who find Chemistry and Physics a breeze because they're good at stuff like that. Many of my friends took Bio but ended up dropping because they found it too hard, but they did enjoy it in the time they were studying it. If you don't like Maths do not do Physics! Most of it is very Maths based and if you don't like Maths it's really not the subject for you, and the same can apply for most Chemistry boards too.

GCSE grades aren't really relative to how well you'll do at A-Level, although it can certainly help. One of my friends got high Bs and As but actually really struggles with sixth form but another of my friends got mostly Cs and two Bs and she doesn't struggle that much with the workload.

Basically, if you are really interested in a subject and want to do well it helps, so don't pick a science that you're not particularly fond of because what many students find is that when they took subjects they weren't interested in or didn't like they felt less inclined to want to do well and also made it harder to revise as the things they were learning were just boring and meaningless to them, but if you take subjects you like then you want to do well and when it comes to revision you're looking at things you genuinely enjoy so it's not as much of a chore (well... revision is always a chore, but it's slightly less so if you like the subject you're revising!)

[F1Addict]

GCSE's are a good indicator for how you might do at A-Level, but just because you do bad in a GCSE doesn't mean you'll do bad at A-Level, and vice versa. It does depend a lot on how much you enjoy the subject. This is the biggest factor imo. I got an A* in Biology at GCSE, took it for A-Level and didn't really enjoy it and decided to drop it after one year (ended up with a B at AS). For Physics, I got an A at GCSE, and absolutely loved it at A-Level and come out with an A*.

If you really find a subject interesting and enjoy it, you will generally do pretty well as you'll naturally be more attentive in the lessons for that subject, put more effort and work in, willingly, and even do some extra research just for the sake of it.