3rd A Level for Psychology

Don't bother with Spanish if you grew up in Spain. I did History and for me the hardest part was essay writing. English Literature is death by books. I would only pick it if you are a big reader and like the books you are going to read. Biology and the other sciences are ridiculously hard.

I did history, I loved it.

Edit: But you grew up in Spain. Spanish is a no-brainer then.

If you are looking to sit it this May then you need to pick something you can cover quickly and that you are good at to give you the best chance of doing well.

History can be quite hard due to the volume of material and the essay technique required; I think that the amount needed to cover for AS would be hard to do in 4 or 5 months especially if you are self-teaching. History is very different at A-level than at GCSE.

Eng lit isn't too bad, but if it is a subject you find hard then trying to cover the syllabus in half the time, and practice without a teacher for guidance on how to write essays might be difficult.

By the sounds of it Spanish may be your best bet of getting a good grade given the time constraints. Not all your A-levels have to be immediately relevant to the course you are applying to, & the entry requirements for psychology are very variable but usually quite flexible.

I was under the impression that universities respect those who study a language at A-Level which, if it was up to me, I would study. English Literature certainly looks good, but so does a language - History tends to be a highly popular choice of degree at uni, but it doesn't always mean that employment will be secured because too many people already have the same qualification.

Spanish is a facilitating subject

Perhaps you're right, I'm not sure. Whenever I've come across people saying it's good to have a language, it's always seemed to be if you're going for a subject like History or Politics (plus any language, obviously). Though I may be wrong there. I suppose I just thought that having a traditional subject would be good (and I don't think of Spanish as being that).

Oh, is it? How the hell did I miss that!? I thought they were Chem, *Maths, Bio, Physics, Classical languages and English Lit?




Hmm... perhaps I should go for Spanish, then.

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

I'm aware of the task that I have in front of me if I pick either English or History, but as I said to the other poster, I'm worried that I don't have a 'facilitating' subject. I see a lot of people on here and elsewhere saying they got into uni to do Psych, and they tend to have a strong set of A Levels. I'm not sure I will have if I take Spanish rather than one of the alternatives...

I really wish I'd known how hard it was going to be to find a place to accept me for Bio

Spanish, and indeed any other MFL, will be regarded as a traditional subject by any measurement.
http://www.trin.cam.ac.uk/acceptable-level-subject-combinations

All modern languages are facilitating subjects, so spanish is fine from that point of view.

You may be able to take a bio syllabus with practical exams rather than practical coursework (I'm thinking of AQA as that's what I did), which might make it possible to sit the practical exams as an external student if you can find a centre that would let you do that (it's a bit more complicated than sitting a normal paper as an external student as they have to set up equipment for you). Either way if you really wanted to do that you would be better off just doing AS bio next year, as it's a bit short notice to start it now and get everything covered before summer.

Okay, thanks for the link.

It seems Cambridge lists Psychology as an Art, then? Everywhere else I've looked it's been under Social Sciences.

I guess they just narrowed all the listed courses down to either "Science" or "Arts" for the sole purpose of A-level comparability...Psychology is indeed a social science

Yeah, that's what I assumed. Thanks for your help.

Seems I should go with Spanish then, given what people here seem to think. I suppose I find Spanish an easy subject so I thought going for a harder one would be better. Perhaps not.

If you want a greater challenge, there is always A-level French, Italian or Portuguese Interestingly, A-level Portuguese does not require a speaking exam / any sort of coursework, if you fancy that

Hello

Firstly, I'm sorry if this is in the wrong place or if I should've posted in a pre-existing thread. I'm still finding my way around the forum.

I was wondering if anyone here might be able to give me a second opinion on a small 'dilemma' I currently have.

Basically, I'm self teaching my A Levels and I need to decide on a third one to take in time to learn the AS and sit my exams this year. I want to do Psychology at university, and the subjects I've already started are Psychology and Sociology.
I was intending to do Biology, but I've since found out it's near impossible to do this if you don't go to school/college due to the practicals you have to do.
So that's why I'm now trying to think what to take as my third choice.

These are my options:

- Spanish. Not very relevant to what I want to do at uni, but I grew up in Spain so I have a good level of the language. I think I could get a good grade without putting that much effort into it. Not why you should take a subject, I know, but I want good grades.
- History. I've read a lot of threads on here with people saying how difficult it is, which worries me depsite the fact I quite like it and did reasonably well in it last year. I think I'm okay at writing essays, but time may be a problem.
- English Literature (or perhaps Lit/Lang). Not that great at it tbh, but I think this may be a useful one as apparently it's respected by unis? Though I know History is too. I do like to read, but I sometimes struggle with analysing what I've read in great detail.

If anybody could give me their opinion I would really appreciate it. Sorry it's been a long post.

mogwai98