The "Which IB subjects should I choose" Thread

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Dandoona1998

Thanks Dandoona! it's quite helpful actually you said some stuff i didn't know. if math studies is THAT easy to get high marks that can probably make up for my chinese marks. i've considered law, but i'm not sure i want to make it a life profession if i can help it, it sounds really boring, plus if its really competitive then i probably cant get in...but then again people says (?) it pays alot XD yeah, i picked biology because some year 12s at our school said that biology is basically memorizing a lot of stuff. good luck to you too and thanks again :smile:

at the moment geography seems like the odd one out . . . my school have a one week trail period this year before we official start IB in Sept but my time table crash, so i won't be able to try out geography lessons :/

Glad to help , and if you are decent at maths you will end up getting quite high grades ( have you done IGCSE maths ? or any equivalent ? if so what grade did you get ? ) . Maybe you could search up a few geography internal assessments and read them to give you an idea of whether you'd enjoy it or even search some revision notes to see what its like since you can't attend the trial class another option could be visiting a bookshop or library and you could read some of the IB geography book maybe that could help you make up your mind .

Reply 1321

PumpkinNox13009

- i just finished my igcse exams a few weeks back and we haven't gotten the grades back yet.
- great idea! i've got a good friend who's in geography HL trail lessons but I should probably find some first hand information about the course

Reply 1322

Dandoona1998

Original post by PumpkinNox13009

Same about the IGCSE exams but what I meant was what do you predict ?

probably C or B?

Original post by PumpkinNox13009

hello, I'm new here so sorry if I'm doing this forum thing wrong haha

I'm currently yr 10 and will take IB next year, the current subjects I've picked are
HL Eng Lit
HL History
HL Geography
Math Studies
SL Chinese Language & Literature
SL Biology

I'm just worried about what to take at University and what sort of career path there are, and if I should change one of my subjects. A lot of careers I googled are oral-oriented (I'm not good at public speaking) or otherwise is so competitive they need some ridiculously high qualification like masters or something.

Also, I'm wondering how hard the subjects are, particularly History, Geo & Chinese? Because
1. everyone says history and geo in IB is really hard and it's really really hard to get a 7
2. I'm a native Chinese speaker so i'm not allowed to pick Language B, but I really suck at Chinese writing, I can't remember enough characters. With reading, I can understand well enough, it's the writing part I struggle with. Is there anything I can do or do I just have to study Chinese like crazy? I'm worried I'll get a 2 or something and affecting my entrance to uni especially since people say UK universities require very high IB marks, and ideally I want to study eng lit in UK (though again, for what reason other than interest, I have no idea)

That combination is fine, it's basically the same as mine except I did SL French instead of Chinese. History I got a 7 in and I got a 6 in Geography, and that was with minimal effort. I'd recommend doing them both, along with English lit.

Reply 1325

PumpkinNox13009

thanks Calllu-m!

wow how did you get a 7 in history? :eek:

i heard its near impossible to achieve

Reply 1326

Dandoona1998

Original post by Calllu-m

Wow a 7 in HL history , that's amazing !! If you don't mind me asking what was your total score ? and what are you studying at uni ?

Reply 1327

Dandoona1998

Original post by PumpkinNox13009

probably C or B?

I once read an article that said if you get an A* in IGCSE math then go for HL and if you get A/B then go for SL and if you get C or less then go for studies so I guess you will be more than fine in studies if you're between a C and B .
Good luck :biggrin:

Reply 1328

username941859

Original post by Dandoona1998

Wow a 7 in HL history , that's amazing !! If you don't mind me asking what was your total score ? and what are you studying at uni ?

Thanks! I got 776 (English lit, history, geography) 665 (French, Biology, Maths Studies) + 2 (A in EE, C in ToK) so 39 overall.

I study Arabic and International Relations with Persian and history modules as extras.

Reply 1329

Dandoona1998

Original post by Calllu-m

That's amazing a 7 in English lit and history , wow I'm seriously amazed . Oh that's nice , I'm fluent in Arabic :smile:

. Good luck :smile:

Reply 1330

username941859

Original post by Dandoona1998

That's amazing a 7 in English lit and history , wow I'm seriously amazed . Oh that's nice , I'm fluent in Arabic :smile:

. Good luck :smile:

Haha hal anta (anti?) araby (arabya?).

I never expected a 7 in English lit. The exams saved me, and brought me from a medium 6 to a high 7.

Reply 1331

Dandoona1998

Original post by Calllu-m

Haha hal anta (anti?) araby (arabya?).

I never expected a 7 in English lit. The exams saved me, and brought me from a medium 6 to a high 7.

Yup , Ana arabiya !!

Posted from TSR Mobile

Reply 1332

PumpkinNox13009

Original post by Dandoona1998

thanks!

Reply 1333

PumpkinNox13009

just a general question, other than reading books to prepare for language subjects, what other things can i do to prepare myself for IB? like, should i join some kind of activities just so I can put them on my CV for university later?

Reply 1334

pbunny

Original post by PumpkinNox13009

You're usually recommended to just relax and enjoy your summer since you'll be swamped with work during your next summer. Just enjoy yourself! However, if your maths is quite rusty i'd practice a bit to make things easier for yourself since the difference between IGCSE maths and SL/HL is really big.

Joining activities to beef up your university application is a great idea, go ahead with it. If you intend on applying to any American universities this will be looked upon favourably since they do ask for any summer activities you've done. Or if you plan on applying to the UK, getting work experience done is always helpful.

Reply 1335

Habiba_29

Helloo,
I NEED HELP!

I want to pursue engineering/economics at a university in the US. However, I also wanted to leave the room open for English Literature...

My IB subjects are:

HL Math
HL English
HL Physics

SL Economics
SL Psychology
SL French

1. Can I go into English Literature with only English SL?
2. I feel that my choice of HLs will be very challenging... Any suggestions?

Reply 1336

pbunny

Original post by Habiba_29

Your subject choices seem absolutely perfect don't change a thing! I know for sure that you can't study literature in the UK with only SL but since universities in the US aren't picky about what subjects you take for IB I think they'd be fine with SL - however you are better off emailing the universities your interested in to make sure they don't care. But i'd still advise you to take HL literature as it shows universities your interest in pursuing the subject further. Plus, there is little difference between HL and SL literature (you read extra books in HL and the marking criteria is stricter) so you'd be actually doing yourself a disfavour by moving literature to SL and picking up another HL subject that is content heavy (read: psychology/economics).

Yes, your HL subjects are literally some of the hardest subjects available to get a 7 in . Maths/physics are reputed as the HARDEST HL's out there but you shouldn't feel intimidated if they're your forte, your interested in them and require them to get into engineering courses. English is generally not perceived as an relatively easy HL subject either because getting a 7 is very unpredictable since it'is so subjective. If you do want to make things easier for yourself, I'd recommend taking HL economics since it'll most probably be easier than literature if you pick up concepts easily and can memorise a lot of graphs etc.

Since engineering and literature are extremely different university courses I think you should do yourself a favour by deciding now between lit, engineering and economics. If you decide on literature you won't need to burden your self with maths and physics HL and can drop them to SL and pick up economics/psychology HL. And if you decide on economics US universities don't care about whether you've taken SL/HL maths so you won't be burdened with HL physics and maths if you decide to take SL.

Hope I helped!

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 1337

Habiba_29

Thank you so much! This indeed helped me ALOT :smile:

Reply 1338

Pasta6163

I was skimming over the syllabus and found that IB geography is more connected to human relationship to resources than actual earth science. Even so, would it be useful for someone who has minor interest in pursuing geology or a related course on the side? How connected is the IB geography course to climate change and environmental issues? Are there differences between SL and HL in this regard? Any help would be appreciated!

Reply 1339

username941859

Original post by PumpkinNox13009

thanks Calllu-m!

wow how did you get a 7 in history? :eek:

i heard its near impossible to achieve

It was fine. I just learnt everything I needed to, and learnt how to use historiography effectively. I also worked hard on my IA, and got full marks in it.