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Hardest A-level?

Rank your A-level hardest to softest

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For me personally:

1.) History (requires a lot of reading around the subject to get the level of detail required for an A/A*. Ridiculous workload even by a level standards, literally death by paper.)

2.) French (All langauages are hard at a level as you need to be virtually fluent to get an A/A*)

3.) English Literature (Again a lot of reading around the subject required to get an A/A* including critics' opinions, not as bad as the workload in history though or the dedication required in French.)

4.) Government and Politics (Comparatively easy as a levels go, if pay attention to the news you can do well in it, also it's still modular so that lowers it down.)
Reply 2
Original post by Lazybutmotivated
Rank your A-level hardest to softest


What about yours?
chemistry or further maths, found the essay subjects easier because you can be less specific
Original post by Connor27
For me personally:

1.) History (requires a lot of reading around the subject to get the level of detail required for an A/A*. Ridiculous workload even by a level standards, literally death by paper.)

2.) French (All langauages are hard at a level as you need to be virtually fluent to get an A/A*)

3.) English Literature (Again a lot of reading around the subject required to get an A/A* including critics' opinions, not as bad as the workload in history though or the dedication required in French.)

4.) Government and Politics (Comparatively easy as a levels go, if pay attention to the news you can do well in it, also it's still modular so that lowers it down.)


Are you doing A2?
For me

1) Ancient Greek
I convinced my school to let me take and I have to do a lot of home study so maybe that's partly why but it's really really difficult. So much to learn. The language is really complicated and you have to be able to analyse and know 2 texts in Ancient Greek.

2) Latin
Same as Ancient Greek but the grammar is slightly more regular and the participles are so much easier.

3) German
I used to struggle to speak it but I've spent so much time speaking to native speakers and listening to it that it's not too much trouble any more.

4) Biology
Relatively straight forward for As if you can grasp the concepts and have a good memory. More difficult for A2 but not unmanageable if you have a good foundation.
(edited 7 years ago)
Original post by Lazybutmotivated
Are you doing A2?


In Year 12 atm
Original post by IYGB
What about yours?


Just recently started doing A levels, so I can't really say
1) chemistry. I got full marks at GCSE chem so thought it would be a breeze but within literally days I realised I'd really have to work my butt off to even pass lmao.

2) maths. Required a lot of practice to really understand concepts but I enjoyed it so it was ok.

3) Geography. Theory was easy and really interesting as my fave subject but a lot to remember.

4) psychology. Literally just a doss- I did the least work for it but came out with the highest grade somehow haha!
Original post by mb293
chemistry or further maths, found the essay subjects easier because you can be less specific


Banter, you've obviously never done history then, if you're not specific in that you'll get solid Ds all the way through
1.)Physics - just because it's harder than my other subjects, you just have to understand concepts and learn the maths.
2.)Maths, further maths and additional further maths - straightforward if you understand why you're doing each step and where it comes from, then you just do every single past paper and you're fine.
Original post by mb293
chemistry or further maths, found the essay subjects easier because you can be less specific


Defo agree that Chem was my hardest but I defo don't think essay subjects are easier because you can be less specific.. if anything I think it's the specificity which is the harder aspect of it haha
Original post by sdpjohnson
1) chemistry. I got full marks at GCSE chem so thought it would be a breeze but within literally days I realised I'd really have to work my butt off to even pass lmao.

2) maths. Required a lot of practice to really understand concepts but I enjoyed it so it was ok.

3) Geography. Theory was easy and really interesting as my fave subject but a lot to remember.

4) psychology. Literally just a doss- I did the least work for it but came out with the highest grade somehow haha!


I think a lot of students think they will do good at A level based on GCSEs results 😂
How many hours of chemistry revision did you do per week?
Original post by Lazybutmotivated
Rank your A-level hardest to softest


Biology - full of dull topics that require excessive memorisation to do well.

Physics - Mechanics is boring

Maths - less applied than physics, so you can basically just exploit past papers to get good grades.

Chemistry - basic maths and drawing, with reagent memorisation and some observational explanation.
Original post by Connor27
Banter, you've obviously never done history then, if you're not specific in that you'll get solid Ds all the way through


Yeah I know, but in chemistry you literally had to say the exact words in the exact order for the answers to be correct which is different to formulating an essay answer. I think it depends on what you prefer I guess. I enjoyed history because I could write more freely.
This is only at AS for me personally (from hardest to easiest) :h:

Biology
Chemistry
Maths/Further Maths

I ended up getting AAAA (I came in with A*A*A*A^ at GCSE) and dropped FMaths, not because I couldn't do it, but it wasn't suited for my course and I wasn't taking 4 A-Levels.
Physics - I get confused easily & forget all of the terms haha
Further maths - the further pure modules take a bit of time for me to understand
History - so much to remember and takes up loads of time in reading, but I find writing the essays pretty straight-forward
Maths - stats kinda sucks so far, but math's just past paper after past paper :tongue:
Reply 17
Original post by Lazybutmotivated
Rank your A-level hardest to softest


1)Physics
2)Further maths/Maths
1) Latin - I find the literature easy, but language kicks my butt :frown: Latin is probably the subject I have to work hardest at. (I cannot grammar with this language to save my life, which is unfortunate)

2) Economics - the topics are so interlinked that you really do need to understand everything + diagrams are not my friend all of the time. That being said, you can get really useful info for it from the news, and it's very interesting.

3) History - it's not particularly hard work, but good lord is there a lot of it! We're doing the Modern Middle East as our current unit though, which is awesome. I think the coursework element was very stressful at the time for me, but now that I've submitted it I'm quite grateful it exists

4) Japanese - this is mostly self-taught and I spend at least an hour a day on it, plus absorbing media etc. It's very demanding but loads of fun!
Original post by GradeA*UnderA
Biology - full of dull topics that require excessive memorisation to do well.

Physics - Mechanics IS SUPER FUN

Maths - less applied than physics, so you can basically just exploit past papers to get good grades.

Chemistry - basic maths and drawing, with reagent memorisation and some observational explanation.

Fixed it for you (mechanics remarks)

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