Those doing Mixed Science and Arts A levels - what do you find harder?

Those doing mixed A Levels what do you find harder between subjects like Eng Lit, History, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, gov and politics?

Reply 1

emmakh123

i took RS, biology, psychology and maths last year and found them all equally hard/easy in different areas on the syllabus.

Reply 2

lol ka

if you had to rank them in order of overall difficulty, how would you rank them?

Reply 3

confuzzled92

Science, simply because of the unintuitive way its taught

Reply 4

musi_1993

I find science much easier just because art subjects are essay based, and the qualilty of examiners we have these days, the same essay could be marked as a U or an A depending on the examiner, whereas science is just a YES or NO answer.

Reply 5

Accalia

Art, but I think that's because I had more exposure as to how Science ASs worked and got used to the layout of questions/answers, whereas my essay writing skills didn't get as much practice.

Reply 6

Folie

I do French, English Lit and Biology. French I think is hardest, Biology is for me the easiest - it's just memorising a lot of information, so for some people it will be very hard, others very easy. I think French is the one that requires the most effort, as there's always work to do, so even if you're 'naturally' good at it, you still have to put lots of work in to continually improve your vocab, fluency etc.

I also did AS chemistry. I found it fairly easy, as there were a lot of easy marks to pick up on simple equations, and if you did past papers the questions tended to repeat themselves. I hear it gets much harder at A2 though, so I don't think I can really say how difficult I would have found the whole A level.

Reply 7

Tabers

I took biology, archaeology, history and geography and Biology was definatly the hardest for me. In the others I could rant/put random stuff in but I couldn't for biology. I found essay subjects much easier but then thats just me.

Reply 8

alexthomas93

I did History, Physics, Maths and Further Maths this year and found History to be substantially the hardest. It's different for every person though, I know people in a similar situation that find their science subjects harder than their arts.

Reply 9

Silly Goose

I do Biology, Chemistry, Maths and English Lit. English was easiest, but Maths was the least stressful (though that might change at A2). Chemistry, by far, was the hardest.

Reply 10

Esc

Original post by lol ka

Those doing mixed A Levels what do you find harder between subjects like Eng Lit, History, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, gov and politics?

Some people find arts subjects harder and some people find science subjects harder. There is no right answer really.

Biology could be really easy to you but at the same time really tough for me.

Reply 11

Dusty12

It depends on you. I'd Biology (which is admittedly probably the 'easy' science), and I find my other arts subjects a lot harder. Biology isn't necessarily less work; I just think it's an easier exam at the end.

Reply 12

moleman3

The subjects i do are maths, chemistry, history and philosophy.

In terms of understanding the content, i would rank chemistry the hardest but maths the easiest, with philosophy probably second hardest and history third. Chemistry is often really difficult to understand, but once you understand the concept it can be really easy. Philosophy is often actually really hard to understand, and the essays are a bitch. History i'm not sure about, with one teacher it's the easiest thing ever, i'd say my easiest subject, but with the other one i don't have a clue what's going on, i guess he expects us to do a lot of the work ourselves through background reading etc which i can never be bothered to do. And maths, occasionally it is a bit confusing when you first start a topic, but generally i find it fairly easy and once you understand an equation it's just a case of slotting in numbers really.

In terms of the exams, i would say both of my essay subjects were a lot harder to revise for and to properly answer the question for. I'd again say that maths was easiest, and chemistry also fairly easy, particularly because a lot of it was just memorising equations. There's so much information to learn for essay subjects and then they only ask you a really specific question on a tiny bit of the course which is always really annoying. I spent at least 4x more time on my essay subjects during revision, and i still feel that i have done better in my science ones. For my chemistry exam, i learnt over half the content on the morning before the exam. You would never be able to do that for History.

So overall i'd say my essay subjects are probably harder, though chemistry can sometimes be a bit of a nightmare!

Reply 13

Tw1x

I did English Lit, Geography, Psychology, Biology, Physics.

I found physics the hardest and English easiest.

Reply 14

Ananya.badithe

Original post by lol ka

Those doing mixed A Levels what do you find harder between subjects like Eng Lit, History, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, gov and politics?

In honesty, I find the arts more harder. The sciences are very straightforward, unless you are good have logical thinking and find that easy, I don't see any reason why sciences should be overselled. Arts simply are highly independent when it comes to doing them, there is no right or wrong answer and the marking of the essays differ to every examiner. I think it is up to you. I am doing Physics, Maths, English Lit and psychology and I find maths the easiest followed by physics.