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History or English Lit at A-Level?

Hi guys,

I'm currently in year 11 and I'm picking my A-Levels for next year... So at the moment for definite I want to pick:
French
German
Maths

Obviously the focus here is languages (I am a language geek xD) but for my fourth option I either want to do History or English Lit (both would be OCR). I just wondered if anyone who has done/is doing History and/or English Lit can tell me about their experiences, if they enjoy it or not, as I am torn between the two.

Any advice would be much appreciated :smile:

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Original post by tigergirl8282
Hi guys,

I'm currently in year 11 and I'm picking my A-Levels for next year... So at the moment for definite I want to pick:
French
German
Maths

Obviously the focus here is languages (I am a language geek xD) but for my fourth option I either want to do History or English Lit (both would be OCR). I just wondered if anyone who has done/is doing History and/or English Lit can tell me about their experiences, if they enjoy it or not, as I am torn between the two.

Any advice would be much appreciated :smile:

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Which do you enjoy most?
Which are you doing best at?
This might help you decide which to take.
Original post by Emma:-)
Which do you enjoy most?
Which are you doing best at?
This might help you decide which to take.


It's conplicated, because I enjoy reading but don't really enjoy the lessons and all the in depth analysis (I also detest Shakespeare and poetry), yet I feel I could get a good grade in it because I'm confident with my GCSE exams coming up. However I really really enjoy History and find it very interesting, but I'm struggling to get a good grade in it :/

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I currently do both at A2, and honestly, I really enjoy both :biggrin:

Although History is probably a lot more work, I prefer it to Literature. There is a great deal of content that you'll have to learn, which can be slightly tedious at times, but it's very interesting and quite fun, especially essays where you can debate a topic. As long as you know the content and get the technique right, you shouldn't find exam questions too difficult at all! I really love it :colondollar:

English Literature, again, is really enjoyable and definitely, in my opinion, has a smaller workload. Obviously, you must enjoy reading to some extent, or it'll become a chore and you won't enjoy it :tongue: there's a lot more freedom in Literature, but you still have to stick to the objectives to do well, so it's not as straight forward as it may seem! Plus, if you do closed book exams, learning a lot of quotes can be a bit of a pain :redface:

I'd recommend looking at what history topics you would study, and what texts you would study in lit. This could really be a deciding factor :smile: if you have any more questions, feel free to ask!

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Original post by tigergirl8282
It's conplicated, because I enjoy reading but don't really enjoy the lessons and all the in depth analysis (I also detest Shakespeare and poetry), yet I feel I could get a good grade in it because I'm confident with my GCSE exams coming up. However I really really enjoy History and find it very interesting, but I'm struggling to get a good grade in it :/

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It might be worth taking english, seeing as you are focusing on languages, and you are expecting a better grade in it.
It might be worth looking into the a-level content before making any decisions though, to see if the course contains anything that you particularly like or dont like.
Reply 5
I would say it depends on the books / time of history you will be studying.

I only have slight experience of history ocr and i believe you study a modern topic and a british extract of history. It was mutually agreed that the british section was the dullest >.>
History = a lot more work, more revision, more concepts and just more to learn. MOAR basically.

Englit =Technically difficult exams, a fair amount of revision, but only in terms of writing notes on the text and wider reading. Hard if you don't enjoy it.
Original post by Changing Skies
I currently do both at A2, and honestly, I really enjoy both :biggrin:

Although History is probably a lot more work, I prefer it to Literature. There is a great deal of content that you'll have to learn, which can be slightly tedious at times, but it's very interesting and quite fun, especially essays where you can debate a topic. As long as you know the content and get the technique right, you shouldn't find exam questions too difficult at all! I really love it :colondollar:

English Literature, again, is really enjoyable and definitely, in my opinion, has a smaller workload. Obviously, you must enjoy reading to some extent, or it'll become a chore and you won't enjoy it :tongue: there's a lot more freedom in Literature, but you still have to stick to the objectives to do well, so it's not as straight forward as it may seem! Plus, if you do closed book exams, learning a lot of quotes can be a bit of a pain :redface:

I'd recommend looking at what history topics you would study, and what texts you would study in lit. This could really be a deciding factor :smile: if you have any more questions, feel free to ask!

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For History we'll be studying Britain and its empire and its role in major crises, and the Cold War and the Vietnam war
For A2 it's Russian history (Tsarism, Stalin etc) and German history

Just wondering if you did/are doing any of these topics :smile: they sound really interesting especially as I haven't covered these at GCSE :biggrin:

Also how much do you spend a night roughly on History work? Is the work mainly writing essays and stuff like that?

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Original post by tigergirl8282
For History we'll be studying Britain and its empire and its role in major crises, and the Cold War and the Vietnam war
For A2 it's Russian history (Tsarism, Stalin etc) and German history

Just wondering if you did/are doing any of these topics :smile: they sound really interesting especially as I haven't covered these at GCSE :biggrin:

Also how much do you spend a night roughly on History work? Is the work mainly writing essays and stuff like that?

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That sounds very interesting :yep: did Russian history at AS and absolutely loved it, it's so fascinating and definitely one of the best topics! And I'm currently doing Germany from 1900-45 at A2 which is also really interesting :smile: so I'd really recommend History as your topics are a lot better than most!

Honestly, not that much :colondollar: it is mostly essays for homework, I used to get about 1 every one or two weeks which really wasn't too bad. They take a couple hours at most :smile: the more you do, the easier you'll find writing them (of course :tongue:)

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Original post by Changing Skies
That sounds very interesting :yep: did Russian history at AS and absolutely loved it, it's so fascinating and definitely one of the best topics! And I'm currently doing Germany from 1900-45 at A2 which is also really interesting :smile: so I'd really recommend History as your topics are a lot better than most!

Honestly, not that much :colondollar: it is mostly essays for homework, I used to get about 1 every one or two weeks which really wasn't too bad. They take a couple hours at most :smile: the more you do, the easier you'll find writing them (of course :tongue:)

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Thanks :smile: I think I originally was leaning towards History more,as I found that I don't really enjoy English Lit at GCSE and figured that it would be a lot harder at A Level :/ how did you find the jump for both subjects? Was it more of the same thing or was it a lot more different?

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Original post by tigergirl8282
Thanks :smile: I think I originally was leaning towards History more,as I found that I don't really enjoy English Lit at GCSE and figured that it would be a lot harder at A Level :/ how did you find the jump for both subjects? Was it more of the same thing or was it a lot more different?

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You're welcome! If you're not massively keen on Literature, it may be best you don't do it, however it does get a lot better at A level! :smile: no silly controlled assessments (though there is obviously coursework). The jump wasn't too bad, History only gets more difficult in the fact that the content amount increases dramatically, and obviously the technique is slightly harder. However, it's nothing unmanageable (I got an A on my first A level history essay). Your teacher should obviously advise you on essay writing. English Literature didn't have too much of a jump either, you just need to again, improve your essays in clarity/content, as well as knowing your texts in more detail and doing wider reading. :smile:

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Original post by Changing Skies
You're welcome! If you're not massively keen on Literature, it may be best you don't do it, however it does get a lot better at A level! :smile: no silly controlled assessments (though there is obviously coursework). The jump wasn't too bad, History only gets more difficult in the fact that the content amount increases dramatically, and obviously the technique is slightly harder. However, it's nothing unmanageable (I got an A on my first A level history essay). Your teacher should obviously advise you on essay writing. English Literature didn't have too much of a jump either, you just need to again, improve your essays in clarity/content, as well as knowing your texts in more detail and doing wider reading. :smile:

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Thank you :smile:

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Original post by tigergirl8282
Hi guys,

I'm currently in year 11 and I'm picking my A-Levels for next year... So at the moment for definite I want to pick:
French
German
Maths

Obviously the focus here is languages (I am a language geek xD) but for my fourth option I either want to do History or English Lit (both would be OCR). I just wondered if anyone who has done/is doing History and/or English Lit can tell me about their experiences, if they enjoy it or not, as I am torn between the two.

Any advice would be much appreciated :smile:

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I do both at A Level, I prefer English (want to do it at uni) so I'm automatically biased towards it as a subject, but at AS I prefer history because of the way the English lit exam is structured (I'm on AQA though)I find that history is a lot more content to learn, but if you have it memorise it's fine, whereas lit is more down to interpretation which can be trickier
That said, I found neither jump from GCSE to a level too difficult (I got 100% in my first history practice exam and I got an A in my first lit ones, so they're not too bad in my opinion)
A levels take committment and work, so if you feel as though you don't like english, I'd advise against it. I don't know the OCR course but it's pretty likely that you'll have to study shakespeare and poetry (on AQA, my coursework was on shakespeare) so don't do it if you really dislike it, but if you think you'll struggle to get a good grade in history, perhaps you'd have to put up with lit. It depends on how confident you are that you can like and do well in each subject.

ps just as a side note, languages at A Level are a massive jump from gcse, I do spanish and I'm averaging Cs after getting A* at gcse without trying, (loved the gcse hate the a level) so prepare to put in a LOT of work for those. Half of my combined workload (or more) throughout this year was just from spanish, so with two you'll have a lot of work to do, don't let it put you off as you're clearly enthusiastic about it, but just prepare yourself :smile:
I'm currently doing eng lit OCR at AS level (YR12) and if im being honest i would have prefered to chose History but my college did Russia which I wasn't very interested in
Lit isn't too bad I guess the only problem is the exams! i found the coursework quite easy (I dont know which texts you will be doing) my first coursework was close-analysis on a chosen extract from Captain Corelli's Mandolin which I found very easy. the second part is a comparative essay on two texts which are from different times or are different types of texts - mine was The Catcher in the Rye (novel from 1951) and the Caretaker (play from 1960) both which weren't too bad once you get started

the only problem im currently facing which makes me regret choosing literature is the exams. there is only one exam but it is split into two parts - section A is poetry based and Section B is on a novel (similar to GCSE if you did AQA or i guess its if you're doing it ) but the only difference here is its a closed book exam. for the poetry section I'm doing Edward Thomas which has 15 poems in the anthology and in the exam you only get one poem infront of you which is the one you HAVE to use in comparison and to compare it with you use any of the other 14 poems but you won't get the poem in front of you so you have to memorise quotes to use or as some people do it learn most/all the poems off by heart.
Section B is Jane Eyre for me and similarly for this you don't get the book so you have to memorise quotes (i think this section is quite easy though as in all the homework essays I have gotten A-/B+'s without much effort - all homeworks are done the night before they're due :colondollar:)
I wasn't very good at GCSE Lit either I was one mark into a B and have no idea why I chose it at AS - but my weakness was always the exams as I didn't know (and still don't know) how to revise more so for the poetry section

so I guess if your able to revise and are good at english literature for poetry and novel section you should choose it. i dont do history but I think it would be easier when it comes to revision because there's just a textbook to learn at te end of the day (similarly to Biology and Chemistry which I'm doing and I find those easier to revise for)
feel free to PM if you have anymore questions and don't worry you still have time to decide until results day :smile:
(edited 9 years ago)
Original post by tigergirl8282
It's conplicated, because I enjoy reading but don't really enjoy the lessons and all the in depth analysis (I also detest Shakespeare and poetry), yet I feel I could get a good grade in it because I'm confident with my GCSE exams coming up. However I really really enjoy History and find it very interesting, but I'm struggling to get a good grade in it :/

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This post settles it; I wouldn't do English Lit.

I mean; you hate the analysis? That's pretty much what the subject is at A level. You hate Shakespeare? Well, I infer that you can't like literature all that much from this. You hate poetry? About one third of your mark will be down to your ability to analyse poetry. And not individual poems: a whole poetry collection, and you'll have to interpret how all the poems operate together to form the entire text. Proper analysis; GCSE pretty much only teaches you to read.

Then again, if you're struggling to get a good grade at history at GCSE, then taking it for A level might not be a good idea.

You already have three strong subjects: French/German/Maths + Englishlit/history and that's an awful lot of work. I couldn't do that.

Out of the two subjects, English goes with the others more than history, if that's worth anything to you. However, English language goes with them more, is apparently easier than English lit, and you don't need all four of your subjects to be the hardest ones. Maybe go for that? Idk, just throwing ideas around.
You will do more Shakespeare at OCR if you take the English path, but it's only in Year 13. Personally I'd pick English - the Cold War test in History is an unpredictable piss take
Original post by BaudelaireLucky
I do both at A Level, I prefer English (want to do it at uni) so I'm automatically biased towards it as a subject, but at AS I prefer history because of the way the English lit exam is structured (I'm on AQA though)I find that history is a lot more content to learn, but if you have it memorise it's fine, whereas lit is more down to interpretation which can be trickier
That said, I found neither jump from GCSE to a level too difficult (I got 100% in my first history practice exam and I got an A in my first lit ones, so they're not too bad in my opinion)
A levels take committment and work, so if you feel as though you don't like english, I'd advise against it. I don't know the OCR course but it's pretty likely that you'll have to study shakespeare and poetry (on AQA, my coursework was on shakespeare) so don't do it if you really dislike it, but if you think you'll struggle to get a good grade in history, perhaps you'd have to put up with lit. It depends on how confident you are that you can like and do well in each subject.

ps just as a side note, languages at A Level are a massive jump from gcse, I do spanish and I'm averaging Cs after getting A* at gcse without trying, (loved the gcse hate the a level) so prepare to put in a LOT of work for those. Half of my combined workload (or more) throughout this year was just from spanish, so with two you'll have a lot of work to do, don't let it put you off as you're clearly enthusiastic about it, but just prepare yourself :smile:


Thanks for the advice :smile: The English Lit exams at GCSE are the ones I'm dreading the most, so I think that I'd struggle at A-Level. And also, I know that 2 languages are a big workload but I'm willing to put in the effort as they're the subjects I want to take on to uni :smile:

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Original post by 1D - Belieber
I'm currently doing eng lit OCR at AS level (YR12) and if im being honest i would have prefered to chose History but my college did Russia which I wasn't very interested in
Lit isn't too bad I guess the only problem is the exams! i found the coursework quite easy (I dont know which texts you will be doing) my first coursework was close-analysis on a chosen extract from Captain Corelli's Mandolin which I found very easy. the second part is a comparative essay on two texts which are from different times or are different types of texts - mine was The Catcher in the Rye (novel from 1951) and the Caretaker (play from 1960) both which weren't too bad once you get started

the only problem im currently facing which makes me regret choosing literature is the exams. there is only one exam but it is split into two parts - section A is poetry based and Section B is on a novel (similar to GCSE if you did AQA or i guess its if you're doing it ) but the only difference here is its a closed book exam. for the poetry section I'm doing Edward Thomas which has 15 poems in the anthology and in the exam you only get one poem infront of you which is the one you HAVE to use in comparison and to compare it with you use any of the other 14 poems but you won't get the poem in front of you so you have to memorise quotes to use or as some people do it learn most/all the poems off by heart.
Section B is Jane Eyre for me and similarly for this you don't get the book so you have to memorise quotes (i think this section is quite easy though as in all the homework essays I have gotten A-/B+'s without much effort - all homeworks are done the night before they're due :colondollar:)
I wasn't very good at GCSE Lit either I was one mark into a B and have no idea why I chose it at AS - but my weakness was always the exams as I didn't know (and still don't know) how to revise more so for the poetry section

so I guess if your able to revise and are good at english literature for poetry and novel section you should choose it. i dont do history but I think it would be easier when it comes to revision because there's just a textbook to learn at te end of the day (similarly to Biology and Chemistry which I'm doing and I find those easier to revise for)
feel free to PM if you have anymore questions and don't worry you still have time to decide until results day :smile:


Thank you!! I've looked at the prospectus for the sixth form college I'm going to and it looks like they'll be doing Jane Eyre too. I'm just not very fond of close analysis and the fact that I have no idea what the exam questions will be :/

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Original post by KingStannis
This post settles it; I wouldn't do English Lit.

I mean; you hate the analysis? That's pretty much what the subject is at A level. You hate Shakespeare? Well, I infer that you can't like literature all that much from this. You hate poetry? About one third of your mark will be down to your ability to analyse poetry. And not individual poems: a whole poetry collection, and you'll have to interpret how all the poems operate together to form the entire text. Proper analysis; GCSE pretty much only teaches you to read.

Then again, if you're struggling to get a good grade at history at GCSE, then taking it for A level might not be a good idea.

You already have three strong subjects: French/German/Maths + Englishlit/history and that's an awful lot of work. I couldn't do that.

Out of the two subjects, English goes with the others more than history, if that's worth anything to you. However, English language goes with them more, is apparently easier than English lit, and you don't need all four of your subjects to be the hardest ones. Maybe go for that? Idk, just throwing ideas around.


Thanks for the advice!:smile: I know that I'm willing to put in the work for the two languages and the Maths, and English for me isn't amazingly enjoyable at the moment so I will probably not end up choosing it :tongue: English Lang I have considered as well, but a lot of unis don't seem to value it as much as EngLit and I don't have much interest in it either, which is why I favoured Lit.

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Original post by tigergirl8282
Thanks for the advice!:smile: I know that I'm willing to put in the work for the two languages and the Maths, and English for me isn't amazingly enjoyable at the moment so I will probably not end up choosing it :tongue: English Lang I have considered as well, but a lot of unis don't seem to value it as much as EngLit and I don't have much interest in it either, which is why I favoured Lit.

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Welcome.

True Lang is as valued, but you have three repsected subjected subjects: a fourth middle in one won't hurt, and lower workload might = higher grades, which is more important.

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