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How difficult are these A levels? (Biology, Chemistry and Sociology)

Hello everyone! my question is how hard are these A levels? I'll give you some background information.

For core and additional biology i got both A's.
For core chemistry i got A and for additional chemistry i got A*.
I didn't do sociology at GCSE, but if you want to do it at A level you need a C in English Language, which i got an A* in.

Please tell me truthfully how hard these A level subjects are, thanks!! P.S i did these GCSE subjects with the exam board AQA, and will also be doing these A levels with AQA!

Thanks again guys!!!!
(edited 7 years ago)

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I can only speak for Biology and Chemistry and they're not hard, they just require a lot of work and practise like any other sciences :smile: there's also loads of content you have to understand and/or memorise, but it's not impossible. :smile: Just be prepared to put in the hours!
What scale is used to measure difficulty

If its 1-10 (10 being impossible) , bio- 5 chem -6 , sociology- minus 59297

Posted from TSR Mobile
One of my A levels was Sociology and i personally didn't find it to be a difficult subject. Just make sure that you're organised, and that you're prepared to write a lot of essays. 😊
Original post by Qasim Abbassi
how hard are these


I can only speak for biology and chemistry.

Chemistry is one of the harder subjects at A-level and much of your effort will be put towards it. There's also a substantial amount of memorisation.
Biology is also quite difficult, but the difficulty comes from the sheer amount of memorisation and interpreting exam questions. Understanding biology is easier than understanding chemistry.
Original post by AnnaRainbows
I can only speak for Biology and Chemistry and they're not hard, they just require a lot of work and practise like any other sciences :smile: there's also loads of content you have to understand and/or memorise, but it's not impossible. :smile: Just be prepared to put in the hours!


thanks for your help!! i added more detail to the question!!
PS i will surely be practising like hell!! thanks!!
Original post by Qasim Abbassi
how hard are these


Biology is hard, it's not difficult to understand everything in biology.Most topics are quite easy, biology is hard due to the amount of content you have to know really well , like my text book is 600 pages long and to do well you'll need to know it all.
Chemistry is not as content heavy but some things are difficult to understand as quite a lot of degree chemistry has moved into a level. You should just trial them and see how you like them if your college will let you.
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Avatar for Hollyht
Hollyht
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I took biology and chemistry. Biology is a lot of remembering large amounts of information about unlinked topics and so long as you stick to your specification isn't too difficult so long as you revise it a lot and have a good memory. Chemistry I found hard to understand at AS and it's helpful if you're good at basic maths such as rearranging equations. Although much less to remember than bio topics are interlinked and once you understand it you're done. A2 is easier than AS in my opinion as it's just building on AS. I don't know much about sociology but I think you need to be good at essay writing and again a lot of facts to remember ( friends did it)


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From personal experiences, biology and chemistry are tough subjects. In biology, you have to be prepared for a lot of memorisation and exam practice, which can be time consuming (to be honest, the content was easy to learn and understand but the exam papers are often pretty brutal).

I did chemistry at AS level and found it to be a much tougher subject than biology. The concepts can be very difficult to understand and it's also a time consuming subject.

I've never studied sociology so can't say how difficult it is.
hey guys!! thanks for all of your extremely helpful replies!! i just updated the question and added a lot of detail to help, but right now, its being moderated/ checked by one of the tsr team, so it's still updating, just bare with me for a moment and when it updates please read it! thanks ever so much for your help!!!
It is extremely hard to answer this question.

If you work hard and don't have too many distractions you can probably get As or A*s at A-level.
Original post by Lemauricien
What scale is used to measure difficulty

If its 1-10 (10 being impossible) , bio- 5 chem -6 , sociology- minus 59297

Posted from TSR Mobile


thanks!! i really hope socio's easy lol!
Original post by alisha179
One of my A levels was Sociology and i personally didn't find it to be a difficult subject. Just make sure that you're organised, and that you're prepared to write a lot of essays. 😊


hahaahah yep im pretty prepared for the essays! thanks for your very helpful time!
Original post by Callum323
I can only speak for biology and chemistry.

Chemistry is one of the harder subjects at A-level and much of your effort will be put towards it. There's also a substantial amount of memorisation.
Biology is also quite difficult, but the difficulty comes from the sheer amount of memorisation and interpreting exam questions. Understanding biology is easier than understanding chemistry.


thank you so much! im kinda ready to put in the work of memorisation and practising! thanks so much!!!!
I'm not trying to scare you but my biology teacher says bio a level requires you to pretty much memorise the whole textbook ( a very thick one). Chemistry (since it's a science) may require you to do something similar and Sociology requires you to memorise theories and use them to give answers. Gonfornitbif your up to all that memorisation I feel it is worth it!!
Original post by Hollyht
I took biology and chemistry. Biology is a lot of remembering large amounts of information about unlinked topics and so long as you stick to your specification isn't too difficult so long as you revise it a lot and have a good memory. Chemistry I found hard to understand at AS and it's helpful if you're good at basic maths such as rearranging equations. Although much less to remember than bio topics are interlinked and once you understand it you're done. A2 is easier than AS in my opinion as it's just building on AS. I don't know much about sociology but I think you need to be good at essay writing and again a lot of facts to remember ( friends did it)


Maybe we did different specifications, but quite a lot of topics seemed similar to me, for example osmosis and transpiration (plants), levels of protein structure and enzymes, and so on. And they were taught to me in sequence, so the whole course made sense itself, but the disadvantage was if you don't understand osmosis for example, you'll be struggling a bit with transpiration and so on. :smile:

I agree with the rest of your statement, though! Chemistry does have lots of formulae, and my god is it annoying to rearrange them. But that's what makes it so interesting, when you actually understand both subjects, you get that sensation of accomplishment!
Original post by Hollyht
I took biology and chemistry. Biology is a lot of remembering large amounts of information about unlinked topics and so long as you stick to your specification isn't too difficult so long as you revise it a lot and have a good memory. Chemistry I found hard to understand at AS and it's helpful if you're good at basic maths such as rearranging equations. Although much less to remember than bio topics are interlinked and once you understand it you're done. A2 is easier than AS in my opinion as it's just building on AS. I don't know much about sociology but I think you need to be good at essay writing and again a lot of facts to remember ( friends did it)


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thanks for your help Holly! lets hope its not too hard haha!
Original post by TimidPhoenix
From personal experiences, biology and chemistry are tough subjects. In biology, you have to be prepared for a lot of memorisation and exam practice, which can be time consuming (to be honest, the content was easy to learn and understand but the exam papers are often pretty brutal).

I did chemistry at AS level and found it to be a much tougher subject than biology. The concepts can be very difficult to understand and it's also a time consuming subject.

I've never studied sociology so can't say how difficult it is.


thanks a lot for your help! you guys are really opening up my eyes! thanks again!!
Original post by Qasim Abbassi
Hello everyone! my question is how hard are these a levels? I'll give you some background information.

For core and additional biology i got both A's.
For core chemistry i got A and for additional chemistry i got A*.
I didn't do sociology at GCSE, but if you want to do it at A level you needed a C in English Language, which i got a A* in.

Please tell me truthfully how hard these A level subjects are, thanks!! P.S i did these GCSE subjects with the exam board AQA, and will also be doing this A levels with AQA!

Thanks again guys!!!!


Depends to be honest GCSEs are nothing compared to A levels so some people may struggle some may find them fine.Did you not do triple science for GCSEs? You will probably be okay with them but don't underestimate them many students in my classes ended up pulling out as they found them too difficult.
Original post by Qasim Abbassi
thanks a lot for your help! you guys are really opening up my eyes! thanks again!!


Any time. :smile:

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