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Choosing A level Options

I am sitting my GCSEs This year which means I need to also be choosing my A levels. I am thinking of choosing the following subjects:
1. Biology
2. Chemistry
3. Maths
4. Business studies
I was really asking for the advice of A level students who have taken these subjects or are currently talking them at the moment.
Are they hard? Is it too much?
I have already got A* in the first exams from these subjects. I'm really scared about maths.

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Reply 1
So long as you found Maths GCSE easy, Maths A-Level will be super easy for you. Just do all the past papers, and you'll be fine.
The typical advice would be to swap Business Studies for Economics if possible.
The workload will be high but should be manageable.
biology is fine- as long as you can remember lots of long words XD it is really the only difference i found between gcse and a level
chem does get quite hard, and you have to make sure you understand as you go along and don't wait until just before the exam
maths- c1 is easier than additional gcse maths the rest are fine, basically just more maths (if you do M1, its kinda hard cause its basically physics)
im not sure about business studies
Maths in year 12 (C1 and C2) is absolutely fine if you're doing well at GCSE and do past papers- I'm fairly sure I'd seen all the papers that exist by the time I took the exams! The year 13 content is difficult to start with, but pretty easy to catch up on gaps in understanding. I didn't have any problems with biology at all last year, but chem was harder, more of a step up from GCSE I think. But still, if you put in the effort you'll be fine, but that's not to say it's overwhelming. I went out with friends, worked a part time job and played sports last year and still kept up with studying and revision just fine :smile: Just make sure you're picking subjects you love, because it's so much harder to put in the time when you don't enjoy it. Hope this helps!
Original post by trythis
So long as you found Maths GCSE easy, Maths A-Level will be super easy for you. Just do all the past papers, and you'll be fine.


Thank you so much for th reply!!☺️. Last year I did one of my actual further maths GCSE papers and got an A* (95%) so I'm hoping a level is good. I am really enjoying mechanics at the moment but not so much statistics
Original post by AlexS101
The typical advice would be to swap Business Studies for Economics if possible.
The workload will be high but should be manageable.


What would be the considerable advantage of economics. I'm not taking it at GCSE but am interested to know what the main differences are?
Original post by CrystalSalvatore
biology is fine- as long as you can remember lots of long words XD it is really the only difference i found between gcse and a level
chem does get quite hard, and you have to make sure you understand as you go along and don't wait until just before the exam
maths- c1 is easier than additional gcse maths the rest are fine, basically just more maths (if you do M1, its kinda hard cause its basically physics)
im not sure about business studies


I really love biology at the moment and got A* last year. I heard that the workload is lots though and I'm worried it would be too Much? The same goes for chemistry but I would plan to use study periods to help understanding!!☺️ Thanks for The advice. It is very much appreciated
Original post by chemistrynerd13
I really love biology at the moment and got A* last year. I heard that the workload is lots though and I'm worried it would be too Much? The same goes for chemistry but I would plan to use study periods to help understanding!!☺️ Thanks for The advice. It is very much appreciated


If you enjoy Biology, I do not think it will be that big of an issue. As long as you study what you like you'll be fine
Original post by amypie2010
Maths in year 12 (C1 and C2) is absolutely fine if you're doing well at GCSE and do past papers- I'm fairly sure I'd seen all the papers that exist by the time I took the exams! The year 13 content is difficult to start with, but pretty easy to catch up on gaps in understanding. I didn't have any problems with biology at all last year, but chem was harder, more of a step up from GCSE I think. But still, if you put in the effort you'll be fine, but that's not to say it's overwhelming. I went out with friends, worked a part time job and played sports last year and still kept up with studying and revision just fine :smile: Just make sure you're picking subjects you love, because it's so much harder to put in the time when you don't enjoy it. Hope this helps!


This is so helpful. Thank you so much! Are there any particular topics that are harder to grasp at As level or are they all relatively the same in terms of difficulty? I did differentiation, integration, matrices, vectors, tangents and stuff In last year so I'm hoping I have the required previous knowledge
Original post by wolfmoon88
If you enjoy Biology, I do not think it will be that big of an issue. As long as you study what you like you'll be fine


Yeah- good point. I will make sure I only choose what I like
Original post by chemistrynerd13
This is so helpful. Thank you so much! Are there any particular topics that are harder to grasp at As level or are they all relatively the same in terms of difficulty? I did differentiation, integration, matrices, vectors, tangents and stuff In last year so I'm hoping I have the required previous knowledge


Wow yeah you'll definitely be fine! At my school we just did GCSE maths, no further or stats or anything, but we have people in our class who joined the sixth form having done stuff like that previously, and they definitely found initially understanding things easier. That said, differentiation and integration were completely new to me and I didn't struggle too much. C3 (at A2) is definitely harder, but still doing okay.
Do you do triple science at the moment? Because there is quite a bit of bio and chem that builds on the triple units, so it's definitely useful, but again not a must.
Original post by amypie2010
Wow yeah you'll definitely be fine! At my school we just did GCSE maths, no further or stats or anything, but we have people in our class who joined the sixth form having done stuff like that previously, and they definitely found initially understanding things easier. That said, differentiation and integration were completely new to me and I didn't struggle too much. C3 (at A2) is definitely harder, but still doing okay.
Do you do triple science at the moment? Because there is quite a bit of bio and chem that builds on the triple units, so it's definitely useful, but again not a must.


I do double award science at the moment but I really enjoy it. We did three actual GCSE exams last year and I got:
Biology - A*
Chemistry- A* (full marks)
Physics-A*(full marks)
Yeah, I think I may have to learn more quantitative chemistry and stuff but hopefully that isn't too hard😂😂👍🏻
Original post by chemistrynerd13
I do double award science at the moment but I really enjoy it. We did three actual GCSE exams last year and I got:
Biology - A*
Chemistry- A* (full marks)
Physics-A*(full marks)
Yeah, I think I may have to learn more quantitative chemistry and stuff but hopefully that isn't too hard😂😂👍🏻


That's great, you'll be fine I'm sure :smile: I can't recommend past papers enough, and specifications too. We do OCR a level chem and it involves a lot of moles and other calculations, which you might have missed out on in double science, but can definitely catch up on. Is there anything else you're concerned about?
Original post by chemistrynerd13
I do double award science at the moment but I really enjoy it. We did three actual GCSE exams last year and I got:
Biology - A*
Chemistry- A* (full marks)
Physics-A*(full marks)
Yeah, I think I may have to learn more quantitative chemistry and stuff but hopefully that isn't too hard😂😂👍🏻


I'm doing the Northern Ireland board CCEA chemistry and biology a levels. I also did double award science and you will have no problem catching up! Triple definitely isn't needed. Chemistry a level involved a lot of calculations and organic, in my experience, so if you like those topics, you'll love it! Our biology course is such a massive jump up from GCSE. You have to be sure you're actually interested in bio and not just doing it for the sake of doing it because it is a big work load and it is hard. Saying that, it's definitely doable and I prefer it to chemistry! Hope this helped.
Original post by VickiL867
I'm doing the Northern Ireland board CCEA chemistry and biology a levels. I also did double award science and you will have no problem catching up! Triple definitely isn't needed. Chemistry a level involved a lot of calculations and organic, in my experience, so if you like those topics, you'll love it! Our biology course is such a massive jump up from GCSE. You have to be sure you're actually interested in bio and not just doing it for the sake of doing it because it is a big work load and it is hard. Saying that, it's definitely doable and I prefer it to chemistry! Hope this helped.


OMG IM WITH CCEA!! Finally found a Northern Irish person. Yaaaas😂😂☺️👍🏻. This is interesting. So in terms of units, which one do you find hardest?
Original post by amypie2010
That's great, you'll be fine I'm sure :smile: I can't recommend past papers enough, and specifications too. We do OCR a level chem and it involves a lot of moles and other calculations, which you might have missed out on in double science, but can definitely catch up on. Is there anything else you're concerned about?


Thank you very much. Yes I have to agree.. past papers are a very good resource! Thank youuu. For now, I don't have any concerns but will be in touch if I have any queries
Original post by chemistrynerd13
OMG IM WITH CCEA!! Finally found a Northern Irish person. Yaaaas😂😂☺️👍🏻. This is interesting. So in terms of units, which one do you find hardest?


Omw, there are hardly any Northern Irish people on here! Well, biology coursework is really tedious, you could spend ages on it and still not feel like you've covered everything but I think you might be doing the new spec, which means you won't have to do this and you also wont have to do the nasty ecology topic! Seriously though, I would recommend biology, I got an A in it, at AS, coming from Double Award background and I found it relatively easy to keep up with and understand during the year. The continuous prose questions are probably the hardest part and taking what you've learned and apply it to what the questions asking. Sometimes you could have the right answer but not have used the exact words that are in the mark scheme so you get the question wrong! Its a bit annoying. With chemistry, I found unit 1 relatively easy, have you done any titrations at GCSE? They're an important part of the Unit 3 practical. Also, a piece of advice : REVISE EVERYTHING for the theory paper of the practical. Seriously. I only looked over a couple of experiments because it was well before my other exams started and practically everything practical from unit 1 and 2 came up. Nightmare. Unit 2 was a lot harder. There's just so much content to learn for chemistry and if you don't understand it, you should definitely ask straight away and get it sorted because leaving it to the last minute got me a C at AS. The calculations were quite hard for me, but if you're wanting to do maths, I'd say that would probably help you. The start of Year 14, so far has been a lot easier in chemistry than last years stuff. I don't know if it was the leap from GCSE to AS or if I'm just better at chemistry now! And biology this year has been interesting so far. This year we've studied things like the kidneys, the eye and how plants flower. I hope this was a bit more helpful. If you have any questions, feel free to ask!
As long as you genuinely have an interest for each of your subjects and you find them fairly easy at GCSE level- you should be fine. I do Bio Chem and Maths and last year I did history - the workload is a bit for bio but isn't difficult unlike chem where you have to really wrap your head around the concepts but not much workload. Maths at AS is super easy but at a2 is a different story. I know nothing about Business sorry

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Probably the best choice really. BTECs are full of all the posh and nerdy kids...

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