Should I pick French or Religious studies at Alevel?

Hey!

I'm also starting year 12 so don't count me as an expert!
It really depends if you are looking for a respected Alevel something that's academic RS is very well respected and is behind subjects such a English Lit. Rs I would say is a very open subject and is super interesting and thought provoking. I'm choosing Rs because I think that Rs is a very enjoyable Alevel ( I took it at gcse ) and that will only encourage me more to try my hardest. I think that Rs also help you as a person, seeing different points of views, being tolerant and also trains your mind to think more than the obvious. I'm always for experiences that makes me a better person

French/ language at Alevel is most probably just like at gcse but x10 more vocab ( I'm assuming ). My sister did French Alevel and she personally regretted it even though she got an A . I know she spent allot of time reading French magazines and watching French movies but I guess like you said your good at memorising so maybe French would be perfect!.my sister did mention that theirs an AWFUL lot of essays to write and memorise for coursework, im also aware that languages is a well respected Alevel too. This is from my sisters point of view so it may be baised!

Hope you found this helpful !



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Thanks helped a lot! Think I'm sticking with RS!

I've just done AS French...
It is a massive step up from GCSE French, and I'd only recommend that you do it if you are not only very good at it, but you also love doing it, otherwise you'll not have the drive to put in the hours when trying to learn vocab, practise, etc, which you HAVE to do for any good grade...
A language A level requires a crazy amount of time and effort. Basically if you enjoy RS- do that!
Hope this helps


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I recently got my GCSE grades and I got an A* in French (AQA) and an A in religious studies (OCR). I was only 2 marks off an A* in religious studies and it is definitely the one I find more enjoyable. However I still do enjoy French and I just want to pick the subject that I'm more likely to get an A in at AS.

The dilemma here is that I feel the only reason I got a good grade in GCSE French is because I have a pretty good memory so I was able to memorize my coursework and get full marks. Although in the exams I did come out with an A* in my reading exam, but got a B in my listening.

I feel that if I pick French next year I will struggle as I will no longer have a whole week to memorize my coursework and the whole format changes so it actually tests your ability in French rather than your ability to memorize.

Whichever subject I pick it will be the one I drop at A2. Is there anyone who does both subjects or even just one that can tell me how challenging the subjects are and more on the workload. Also how students like me who relied on their memory to do well at GCSE French tend to get on at Alevel. Thanks

The grammar isn't too bad for GCSE, but you'll be pulled up a lot more on mistakes that you didn't even realize you were making last year. There's one extra tense which is easy and nothing to worry about, but for the exam you have to write a lot of the answers to listening and reading in full french sentences, which can be a pain. And the writing part has to all be made up on the spot- no preparation really like the GCSE controlled assessments (well, that's what I did)
Maths you won't need to do much work for; can't speak for physics!
I've heard as well that history takes a lot of work revising - can I ask what you wanna do at uni if you know already?

Full sentences in reading and listening exams?! I skimmed through a couple of Unit 1 papers for the subject before opting for it and got the impression that the jump from GCSE wasn't nearly as huge as I'd initially thought it would be but that the writing section would be a massive challenge- which your response seems to confirm!
I'm just trying to keep my a-level combination (two arts, two sciences) as open as possible because I am not sure what I want to pursue- physics and maths open up a lot of doors but I know that history probably won't be a requirement for the course I choose so I'm having second thoughts. Perhaps I'd be better off replacing history with chemistry?
Positives:
- Opens up even more career pathways than just physics and maths e.g. chemical engineering.
- Maths ( a strength of mine) is heavily involved in at least one of the units
- No extra/background reading so more time to dedicate to french/understanding the difficult concepts in physics
- Does not require essays (unlike History) which I can find quite stressful.
- History proved quite stressful at GCSE...
Negatives:
- History is ultimately more interesting, meaning I'll be willing to do the extra reading it entails.
- Although I managed A*s in both, I performed consistently higher in history over the two years than I did in chemistry but then again- I devoted more time to the latter.
- History will most certainly help develop my analytical skills but I could regret my decision to switch to chem if it is not a requirement for any of the uni courses to apply for.

If you're not too sure about history and you want a subject which involves a fair bit of analysis, you could try economics (although I don't know you and what you're interested in), it's quite a good subject since it's linked to maths and it's essay based...
At the end of the day, it's what you enjoy doing- and the more you enjoy it, the more it'll come naturally to you I'd imagine!
I wish I did chemistry instead of French now, if you enjoyed it as gcse then if I was you I'd take it this year too


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I did consider economics because the syllabus for the exam board my school uses is highly compelling but ruled it out because I don't think it is something I want to go into at Uni ( purely because most of the jobs are in accounting/investment banking/finance)- am reconsidering it now.
Choosing only what I enjoy doing causes me to hesitate: subjects like R.S.,french, history etc aren't directly related to any specific field; plus law bores me and I know presenting and media-related jobs aren't really for me!
Out of curiosity, why is it that you'd rather have done chemistry?

There are loads of people who do economics at AS/A2 and wanna do sciences and other humanities apart from the social sciences at uni.
I just enjoyed chemistry at gcse, found it interesting but just went with French because I thought it'd help me more in the future- in the end I just didn't enjoy it, and because I wanna do Eco at uni, it's not really that relevant at all! Chemistry had practicals too
Erm... It can be useful to read some French newspapers/ articles just to keep your reading skills sharp, but apart from learning vocab for the exams, not a lot really- the difficulty of reading a newspaper article will be harder than the exam, so it's good prep


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Great- thank you! Appreciate all your help . I think I'm ruling out chemistry for the moment because I've had a look at uni courses and those that list chemistry as a requirement don't interest me. My school is organizing for career consultants to come in this week so hopefully that should be helpful. On the other hand, I trialled economics today and did enjoy it so there's that too.