A-level Biology or Psychology?

Here's the dilemma...
Biology will be more useful, but I think I would enjoy psychology more than biology. I did take both psychology and biology at gcse, and preferred psychology.

So I want to ask some questions before I decide, bear in mind that it would be AQA psychology and OCR biology.

1. Which one has more content and things to memorise?

2. Which one, in your opinion, is/was more interesting?

3. Which one, in your opinion, is/was more difficult?

4. If you are taking 3 challenging subjects, is it worth taking one that is slightly easier, up to AS (under the assumption that psychology is easier than biology, though I could be wrong)?

Thanks :smile:

Reply 1

Jkizer

Depends what you want to do after school / college?

Reply 2

Laurasaur

Original post by Jkizer

Depends what you want to do after school / college?

I'm not entirely sure about which specific course: I want to take something that's science-related. It would probably be based on chemistry though, possibly chemical engineering (I change my mind pretty much every week, however it always goes back to chemistry).

Reply 3

AmmaBrownie

Original post by Laurasaur

I did both OCR Biology, OCR A Chemistry, OCR Economics and AQA B Psychology.

Trying to keep up with the workload of Biology at AS for me was really hard, but I love Biology and plan on studying it at University. Psychology is not by any means 'easy', but I do understand what you're saying. If you enjoy and are good at essay based subjects ( for aqa B a max of 3, 10 markers in one paper at AS, becoming 12 at A2) then by all means go ahead with Psychology. But if you are looking at doing a Chemistry related degree, I felt Biology did have parts that interlinked with Chemistry albeit very little at A Levels. If you know exactly whether you're doing AQA A or B let me know and I'll let you know what options my teachers decided on and maybe if you're still not sure give you a better insight into these subjects.

Hope this helped.
All the best~

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(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 4

William Turtle

Original post by Laurasaur

Are you doing chemistry, maths and physics as your other subjects then? The problem I'd find with doing psychology is that, in your two years of A levels, you might find that you want to do a uni course that requires biology. With psychology, you're stuck. Consider also that there's no course (I think) that requires a psychology A level.

I certainly wanted to keep my science options open, so did chem, maths, bio and phys.

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Reply 5

qwerty73

Original post by Laurasaur

Hi I took both subjects for both AS and A2 :smile:

1.Biology
2.Biology
3.Biology

I personally found Psychology boring in most areas, especially at A2, but biology was more challenging due to the amount of content and the more difficult exam questions.
I would have dropped Psychology at AS if I could, but of course it really depends on what you find interesting and what career path you're more drawn to.

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 6

Table dust

Psychology is easier but mind numbingly boring to study & biology is harder but interesting.

For psychology you can do 0 revision, pull an all nighter before the exam and get a C. Try that for biology and you'll get a U. This is from experience

Reply 7

AmmaBrownie

Original post by Table dust

100% agree on this.

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Reply 8

BesideThePoint

Original post by Table dust

Original post by AmmaBrownie

100% agree on this.

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Either you guys are geniuses or I'm just dumb. Don't know about biology cause I didn't take it, but for AS Psychology (AQA A), there's ****loads to know!! There's no way in hell I could pull an all-nighter and come out with a C except with the help of low grade boundaries. There are a lot of studies you need to know, so much exam technique to be mastered, research methods etc. and if one doesn't learn these things, they're screwed in the exam in my opinion

Reply 9

Ltc967

Id say do what you enjoy because then you're more likely to do well

Also, a2 psychology is really hard and a huge step up from AS which you might want to take into consideration. It involves memorising many studies (far more than in AS)

Reply 10

Maramkhattab

Alevel psychology edexcel or cie? Which one is better? AQA is not accepted in universities in Egypt so it's not an option for me

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