Chemistry VS Psychology

Hey guys,
It's now time for us to choose our IB subjects. I wonder about if I should take psychology SL or chemistry SL. Which is the easiest to get a good grade in? I really want to get high marks from IB because I want to get in my university. I know that both are not that easy, but which one can be easier to get a 6 or a 7 in?

We have to decide as soon as possible and I'm still confused about it.

I hope that someone who has an exeperince answers me.

Thank you so much!

Reply 1

artful_lounger

Universities Forum Helper

I would suggest you first determine whether you need HL Chemistry for whatever degree you may wish to do in future; any chemistry degree, most bioscience subject degrees, most dental and vet med courses and about half of medical schools would require HL Chemistry. It might also be needed or preferred for some engineering or physical sciences degrees (e.g. materials science, chemical engineering, possibly some earth sciences courses). If you wanted to go into any of those areas you will basically need HL Chemistry which pretty much makes the decision for you. There are no degrees which absolutely require HL Psychology that I am aware of however.

Also one possible option is to discuss with your school if you can start with 4 HL subjects then drop one in first year. A lot of people in my IB cohort did this (mostly with HL Maths, which everyone dropped lol, but a few with other subjects). This will let you get a feel for each of the subjects before making a decision.

Reply 2

Ashrafk

Firstly thank you for your answer. My question is about which one can be easier and not which one I need to take. I mean I know the requierments for my univeristy and it doesn't matter which one I take. The most importent thing for me is the IB score and which subject I can reach the 6 or 7 :smile:

Reply 3

artful_lounger

Universities Forum Helper

Original post by Ashrafk

That depends then on whether you are better at chemistry or at essay writing, I suppose. HL Chemistry was considered pretty hard when I did IB, although I didn't do it; I did do HL Psychology, although the syllabus has changed a lot since then, and I didn't think it was overly hard but I was also not aiming for a 7 (I got a 5 in the end). Psychology was mainly about learning a large volume of information to then write out in the exam (in a relevant way), my experiences of studying chemistry later was that it was more about learning processes and applying these to problems (although the way organic chemistry is taught at that level does tend to make it very "information heavy", or at least to seem that way). If you're good at remembering a lot of info then psychology is probably not hard, although if you don't find it interesting that might make things more difficult. If you're good at problem solving and pattern recognition then chemistry might be easier, perhaps.

Reply 4

VanillaCream

I'm doing HL chemistry and I think the SL content is quite easy to grasp, that's also what my friends doing SL chemistry say, but that would probably depend to an extent if you're good at sciences/maths in general, what are your other subjects, the ones that you feel confident in? But in general I'd say that apart from maybe electrochemistry and organic chemistry, the hard content at chemistry starts at HL :P
I don't know much about psychology tho as it's not offered in my school, but in general, it requires good essay writing skills probably (as most group 3 subjects) and more memorisation than chemistry