A level Biology vs HL IB biology

Hi. I'm a year 11 student and I've applied to a couple of schools for sixth form including an IB school which I really like the look of. The subjects I'd take for A levels and higher IBs would be biology, chemistry and Spanish. I love the whole idea of the IB but I'm a little apprehensive that there is less content than A level biology? If I wanted to study a biology related degree would I be at a disadvantage to A level students also on the course because of this? I'm also a bit concerned because I think the specification for IB biology has changed this year so I'll be the first cohort to do it. I like how it will be up to date having things as recent as covid in it but I'm worried about whether we'll at a disadvantage because there will be no past papers of this spec and our teachers first time teaching it. The IB school is a lovely and high achieving school and I do think I am suited to the IB, but I'd appreciate some advice on the questions above. I do have some great other A level schools I've been offered a place at too.

If anyone has any advice about IB vs A level biology I'd love to hear it. If anyone has experience being the first cohort of any exam' I'd like to know how you got on. Was it hard to find revision resources?

Many thanks

Caotica

Reply 1

oradion

6

I never ended up taking Biology, but I do Physics, Computer Science and Maths AA at HL in IB and have quite a few friends that took a similar combo to you, so I think I could help a bit (other people can correct me if what I say is wrong). It's true that the IB generally covers less content than their A level counterparts (Maths is an exception to this in a weird way, but you don't need to worry about that), but the general thing that uni students have told me after is that it'll take a bit of time to catch up in Uni, but not that long as the first few weeks of term are essentially a recap so that everyone is up to speed - AKA, it isn't much of a problem. If you end up finishing IB and truly love biology then you might find yourself teaching yourself the rest of the A level content with the extra month and a half that comes with doing the IB lol. I think your focus should primarily be on the school that you can go to and whether you want to do IB or do A levels, don't let a subject hold you down :smile:

Then again I don't do biology, someone can correct me if I'm tweaking lol

(edited 10 months ago)

Reply 2

Caotica

OP

12

Original post by oradion

I never ended up taking Biology, but I do Physics, Computer Science and Maths AA at HL in IB and have quite a few friends that took a similar combo to you, so I think I could help a bit (other people can correct me if what I say is wrong). It's true that the IB generally covers less content than their A level counterparts (Maths is an exception to this in a weird way, but you don't need to worry about that), but the general thing that uni students have told me after is that it'll take a bit of time to catch up in Uni, but not that long as the first few weeks of term are essentially a recap so that everyone is up to speed - AKA, it isn't much of a problem. If you end up finishing IB and truly love biology then you might find yourself teaching yourself the rest of the A level content with the extra month and a half that comes with doing the IB lol. I think your focus should primarily be on the school that you can go to and whether you want to do IB or do A levels, don't let a subject hold you down :smile:

Then again I don't do biology, someone can correct me if I'm tweaking lol

Thank you for this! Very useful. Yh it's a good idea to do some catch up stuff in that extra month and a half if I feel I need to

Reply 3

BubblesBB

13

No, you will not be at a disadvantage taking the IB. In fact, it will be a huge advantage as universities have expressed delight in accepting HL Science students because of their experience in self-directed research paper writing, which is a skill that is needed in university. (There is no course-work for A Levels Biology, as far as I know) FYI - I took HL Chem, HL Bio and HL Psych and have attained 777. IB Science students would not have any issue to hit the ground running. Our alumni have often given feedback to our High School that first year at university is easy. I am excited to see what my personal experience will be this fall.

I am not able to make topic to topic comparisons between A Levels Bio and IB HL Bio. I can however, say that comparing topics alone is not meaningful because you need to consider the bigger picture of how demanding the entire IB Diploma is of your time. 6 subjects in IB vs 3 in A levels. You have internal coursework for all 6 subjects. You have a 4000 word Extended Essay, TOK and CAS (Creative, Activities and Service). All of these pulling you at different directions all of the time.

(edited 9 months ago)

Reply 4

BubblesBB

13

PS: I have heard that the HL Sciences are going to be open-book exams and there will no longer be a Paper 3 optional topic, meaning that the optional topic becomes a compulsory topic and will be absorbed into Paper 1 and Paper 2. If I am not mistaken, A levels exam papers splits the topics into 3 papers, and the exam dates are spread out? IB exams are back to back, and are all compressed into 3 weeks with some days having 3 to 4 papers. (depends on your subject combination)

Open-book exams can only mean one thing - they won't be easier but harder. Regurgitating content won't help you score. I hazard a guess that it would be a lot more application and analytical questions going forward.

Reply 5

artful_lounger

Universities Forum Helper

21

Original post by Caotica

Hi. I'm a year 11 student and I've applied to a couple of schools for sixth form including an IB school which I really like the look of. The subjects I'd take for A levels and higher IBs would be biology, chemistry and Spanish. I love the whole idea of the IB but I'm a little apprehensive that there is less content than A level biology? If I wanted to study a biology related degree would I be at a disadvantage to A level students also on the course because of this? I'm also a bit concerned because I think the specification for IB biology has changed this year so I'll be the first cohort to do it. I like how it will be up to date having things as recent as covid in it but I'm worried about whether we'll at a disadvantage because there will be no past papers of this spec and our teachers first time teaching it. The IB school is a lovely and high achieving school and I do think I am suited to the IB, but I'd appreciate some advice on the questions above. I do have some great other A level schools I've been offered a place at too.

If anyone has any advice about IB vs A level biology I'd love to hear it. If anyone has experience being the first cohort of any exam' I'd like to know how you got on. Was it hard to find revision resources?

Many thanks

Caotica

You cover the essential core content in both. You might have a little less breadth in some areas (and in a smaller number of areas, a little less depth - I think the Krebs cycle we did a little less of the detail than A-level Biology).

Since you're covering the core material in either, and unis will expect students from a range of backgrounds (not only those two, but also international students doing very different syllabuses, and students who have gone to very different schools and may have varying quality of teaching for example). Thus first year usually spends at least some time consolidating the relevant material students will have been expected to do in 6th form, before continuing on. Also in some subjects (biology particularly I think) things are often revisted more in a "helical" fasion rather than a directly linear fashion - i.e. you will learn one topic, then revisit it later and fill in gaps and more detail (or even learn why the "model" you learned before is actually not overly accurate but is just a minimally sufficient abstraction of the real process - and then you learn that real process).

So don't worry about whether you will cover the content sufficiently. Between the course and your uni studies you will cover what you need to know.

There are much bigger differences between A-levels and IB to consider first. Namely, all your standard level subjects and the core. This adds a lot to your workload and balancing multiple competing deadlines is something you have to pick up quite quickly in IB, as is the need to be able to "change gears" quickly. You can well go from spending an hour doing integral calculus to then next needing to write a literary critical essay - and that's just for your regular homework!

That said the breadth of subjects can be useful. You will necessarily develop the skills to write a proper academic essay regardless, and you will normally necessarily have a minimum level of mathematical background even if you don't do HL Maths, both of which I gather can be useful for biology - as sciences at degree level don't have the same artificial divide between maths and the sciences as in school, and a level of mathematical ability beyond GCSE I gather greatly enhances your general scientific literacy when being able to understand journal papers and so on. Equally biology as a subject I gather can involve some longer form prose writing for some kinds of assessments, so understand how to construct a proper academic essay rather than just regurgitate all the knowledge you have on a topic is a useful skill. But these are "soft skills" more than "hard skills" and so it may be fair to decide it's better to pick that up in uni than to overly stress (or worse, risk getting the grades you need) in 6th form.

Spoiler

Reply 6

gannananas

1

Original post by Caotica

Hi. I'm a year 11 student and I've applied to a couple of schools for sixth form including an IB school which I really like the look of. The subjects I'd take for A levels and higher IBs would be biology, chemistry and Spanish. I love the whole idea of the IB but I'm a little apprehensive that there is less content than A level biology? If I wanted to study a biology related degree would I be at a disadvantage to A level students also on the course because of this? I'm also a bit concerned because I think the specification for IB biology has changed this year so I'll be the first cohort to do it. I like how it will be up to date having things as recent as covid in it but I'm worried about whether we'll at a disadvantage because there will be no past papers of this spec and our teachers first time teaching it. The IB school is a lovely and high achieving school and I do think I am suited to the IB, but I'd appreciate some advice on the questions above. I do have some great other A level schools I've been offered a place at too.

If anyone has any advice about IB vs A level biology I'd love to hear it. If anyone has experience being the first cohort of any exam' I'd like to know how you got on. Was it hard to find revision resources?

Many thanks

Caotica

At the end of the day unis will take you if you either do A levels or IB, they see it as equivalent, so I don't see how you would be particularly disadvantaged. Obviously, there will be some gaps, but you'll also be more experience in the research and essay writing, so you will have some advantage in that area. I was also worried about that before chosing IB, but everyone I talked to about it did not seem to think it was an issue. Good luck!

Reply 7

lau321

10

Just to add to this, I'm doing IB HL Bio right now and my A Level friends and I have essentially done the same things. Obviously there's a few exceptions but they'll not know something on my course just as often as I don't know something on theirs! Don't worry about a lack of depth, I love Bio and dedicate a lot of my time to it! :smile:

A level Biology vs HL IB biology

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