Advanced higher biology or chemistry?

Hi, it kind of depends what you want to at uni. But I'd say chemistry opens more options. If you are equally good at bio and chem, I'd say do chemistry as the investigation is easier, the material isn't *too hard* and so the exam is pretty standard. Therefore AH chem is probably easier to get a high mark in. Both chem and bio have interesting bits and dull bits, s you can't really compare them.

Hi guys,
I'm going into S6 but cannot decide whether to take advanced higher biology or chemistry? I only want to take one of these subjects but don't know which one. Can anyone give me any advice about how you found these subjects? Which one (in your opinion) is easier, more interesting etc?
Thanks in advance.

Hey it all depends on what you want to do after school! I did both this year and can answer any questions you have. Biology is really just rote learning (reading the material and learning it). I hated AH Bio throughout the full year and failed the prelim because I didn't even look at it once, but then it came up in my uni conditions so I studied hard for it and it became one of my favourite subjects! It is really interesting, especially unit one which is all about cells. Unit 2 is all about animals, evolution and sex and unit 3 is about experimental techniques and the project. Be warned though there is lots of problem solving Qs in the exam which is ****.

AH chem is really interesting too but it is much much harder. Way more maths and calcs and unit 1 is heavy physics orientated. Unit 2 is organic chem but really doesn't overlap with biology at all. Organic chem is its own beast. The project was more fun to carry out for chem but it depends on what you do tbh. Bio was easier to write up!

Hi! Thank you so much for your reply! I've been reading both the threads for last years advanced higher biology and chemistry but found that most people hated adv bio due to the analysis and bulk of information.
I'm currently undecided about what I want to do at uni. I've been thinking about optometry for the past year which is why I'm crashing higher physics. This is mainly the reason why I only want to take only one advanced science as I know physics will require a lot of hard work. However, I will probably do a biological science course at uni if I choose not to do optometry (so a course like physiology or human biology & nutrition). It's probably worth mentioning that I crashed chemistry at higher though. But saying that, I enjoyed chemistry maybe even more than human biology. I'm just really unsure right now and quite worried about the investigation.

Hey, I did higher physics last year as well as both AH's too and it is possible! I didn't crash it like you did as I did nat 5 in S4 but I did the higher last year in S6 so I had forgotten everything anyway.

Biology does have a bit of reading and learning in it but so does chemistry tbh. I personally found that they were both very different as for bio I literally wrote all my notes out from scholar a month before the exam, learned it and did past papers whereas for chem I had to just do tons and tons and tons of questions and past papers to learn all the calculations for unit 1, and for organic chemistry the best thing to do was to drawn out and learn everything.

If you have any specific questions about any 3 give us a shout, Higher physics is pretty easy to cope with throughout the year though, as long as you keep up with the work, I fell behind cause I got cocky with it and had a mad dash to cram before the exam.

What other subjects are you planning on taking? I did AH Bio Ah Chem, Higher physics and Higher modern studies and it was okay, albeit I did decide to just patch the mods and focus on the 3.

I sat AH Bio the year just gone by, and I absolutely hated every minute of that class

However, by the time exams rolled around I realised it was just the flimsy teaching we had suffered through that dulled my interest for the subject. During my revision I found the course content pretty interesting, and more importantly: easy to memorise and understand. I'm not really a science-y person myself (my other subjects were AH English and AH History )

I had a quite a few friends doing both AH Chem and AH Bio and most of them seemed to find Chemistry the more difficult class (even the best members of the Chem class, who needed at least a B for Uni conditions (Med and Vet applicants) were getting 50-55% in the prelim) - whereas in Biology they were about 65%-70% (70% was the max in my class for the prelims) - heck I just sat at the front of the class, totally spaced out most of the time, agreeing with whatever the teacher was saying in hopes she wouldn't try and explain it again for the umpteenth time and give us yet another differently worded definition, and even then I managed to scrape a decent B 😅

Thank you for your response! Congratulations on your B!! That's absolutely great!! I've heard that advanced biology involves a lot of analysis. Did you find the analysis challenging?

I'm also taking AH History! How did you find it? Do you have any advice about it?

Haha thanks! Well that was just my prelim, exam wise I think I've either maintained my B or scraped a low A (project dependent )

I didn't really find the analysis that difficult in all honesty, though I've always found that element of Biology easy - analysis and problem solving questions were the only reason I passed my prelim tbh, since I usually manage to chuck in a decent guess haha

Ahhhhhh AH History - this is the subject that enabled me to survive the school year
I studied the Britain at War and Peace 1938-51 topic and I love love loved it soooooo much! The main element of AH is you need to always have a clear argument (fence sitting isn't advised) and learn historiography, without having that you fail - by exam time I was just learning historiography and arguments instead of KU, since the KU is considered an absolute basic tool that needs to be there but only so you can show off your analytical prowess and argumentative skills. Also don't be afraid to challenge historiography, it's a high order skill and will gain you a better mark. Most of my essays usually included ripping on at least one historian's opinion. I think the reason I loved the course so much is because I just absolutely love arguing
I got 93% in my prelim, my dissertation was a band 1, and I'm going on to study History at Uni so if you ever have any other questions, or need any assistance, please feel free to message me and I'll try my best to help

93%!!!!!!! WOAH!! That's flipping amazing!! Thank you so much! I might just take you up on that offer haha!! I'm a bit worried about not being able to learn a set answer for the essays since I literally got through higher by doing that. We're studying Russia: From Tsarism to Stalinism, 1914-1945, which we touched on in higher. Is there a lot of information to learn for the essays?

Thank you for your response! Congratulations on your B!! That's absolutely great!! I've heard that advanced biology involves a lot of analysis. Did you find the analysis challenging?

I'm also taking AH History! How did you find it? Do you have any advice about it?

Haha even I was shocked at my result! 😂 Thanks 😊

It depends really, on everage my essays were 4-5 A4 sides when written out (I average 250 words a page so about 1000-1250 words maximum) - I never felt the amount of information overwhelming, although my class (of an entire 4 people ) decided not to revise the military section too much, and we also left out the essays from the end of the course that can't come up in sources and are therefore avoidable. My teacher is quite privy to the SQA's tricks so she picked and chose quite well and avoided overcramming us with information we didn't need

You can still do essay plans at AH to be honest, before exams I made spider diagrams of each potential essay topic - which were basically essay plans of another form
It's just significantly less rigid than the "KU + Analysis" format found at Higher - ideas and arguments are much more the driving force, and you then need to back these up with the KU and Analysis if you get what I mean

Lots of analysis in AH Bio? Perhaps in the exam (problem solving questions based on graphs etc), but you can basically practise them from past papers. As far as the course is concerned, not too much analysis, more about memorising cells functions/lab techniques/evolution etc

At the moment I'm taking AH Bio, AH History and Higher physics. I'm trying to get a space in AH Chemistry just to get a taste of what it's like but it's full. I'm still a subject short as I only plan on taking 2 AH's and 2 Highers but don't know which other Higher to take as I didn't really enjoy the Nat 5's that i took. I'm thinking of taking either Higher RMPS, Photography or Accounting or something (I just want to take a fairly straightforward higher that won't require as much work so that I won't struggle to keep on top of my workload throughout the year (no offence to anyone taking these subjects).

Did you end up dropping modies then? Or did you just not put in as much work as you did in your other subjects?

Thank you so much for all your help by the way!

Ahhh okay! Thank you for clarifying that! That makes a lot more sense now. So analysis in the exam is similar to the problem solving that came up at higher biology/human biology? Like graph stuff?

I ended up just not studying for it at all and even then I could still attempt the exam, if you want a straightforward easy subject you cannot go wrong with moddies. Especially if you are good at history (so lucky you got to do AH history btw, I loved higher but couldnt do AH as it was on the same time as AH chem!) athough it is kida different to history, its not as good imo

Chemistry