Geography and History GCSE's?

Is it too hard to take geography as well as my other options (history, French, PE, triple science, maths, english)? Anyone regret doing both or glad that they did?

btw I want to work in medicine when I am older

Reply 1

mxskaan

11

Geography in my opinion is not as easy as everyone says it is. I'm taking my geography GCSE in a few months and I have to remember over 37 case studies and lots of facts and figures for each one. Also you have to be good at different skills such as map reading and there are quite a lot of graph and diagram questions. I do not take history but I really don't think I would be able to cope if I did. However, my friend takes both and she says it requires a lot of commitment so if you are really passionate then I guess you could.

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 2

Awais_

2

Original post by gdickenson

Is it too hard to take geography as well as my other options (history, French, PE, triple science, maths, english)? Anyone regret doing both or glad that they did?

btw I want to work in medicine when I am older

Triple Science and Geography go well together mate, go for it.

Reply 3

stirkee

19

nah geography is easy. I took the exams and did no revision (bar the night before for maybe some?) and got a mid A* (as in half way ish between A* and 100%). I found it to basically be common sense lol.

and no, that is not a brag, its gcse geography ffs why would anyone brag about that

Reply 4

stirkee

19

Original post by mxskaan

Geography in my opinion is not as easy as everyone says it is. I'm taking my geography GCSE in a few months and I have to remember over 20 case studies and lots of facts and figures for each one. Also you have to be good at different skills such as map reading and there are quite a lot of graph and diagram questions. I do not take history but I really don't think I would be able to cope if I did. However, my friend takes both and she says it requires a lot of commitment so if you are really passionate then I guess you could.

haha each to their own

Reply 5

gdickenson

OP

6

Thanks. I get good geog results in tests but only when I revise. I find it hard to remember the stuff we do in lessons.

Reply 6

starstudent7

18

I would personally pick history if I was you as I want to have a career in medicine too and I picked it. I picked it as I found out that it involves problem solving and reasoning which is what good universities expect from their students. You just have to revise and that's what I did and I got an A* in the recent exam. Good luck!

Reply 7

aamirac

20

I loved Geography at GCSE (love it at A level too :teehee:

). What I found for geography is to take the case studies as they come throughout the year so at the end your not like 'OMG I have so many to learn!'

But it's a really good well rounded subject to have. Go for it! :biggrin:

Reply 8

stirkee

19

Original post by starstudent7

I would personally pick history if I was you as I want to have a career in medicine too and I picked it. I picked it as I found out that it involves problem solving and reasoning which is what good universities expect from their students. You just have to revise and that's what I did and I got an A* in the recent exam. Good luck!

I think for GCSE it largely doesn't matter which you pick however for A level History would definitely be the better choice.

There's no doubt at all that history takes FAR more work, I probably spent 50-100 times longer revising for history than for geog (but i barely did geog revision to be fair) but on top of that I did probably one history essay per week set by my teacher and barely any geog homework so across the year history takes a lot more effort.

Even more so for A level, history takes a lot of work (and I did pre u history not a level so even more work lol)

Reply 9

S.G.

22

I did both and got an A* in History and A in Geography.
I would say you are more assured at what you are going to get in geography than history.

Basically, you know how well you've done in geography.

In history, I never got an A* in any test, until I got 97, 100, 90, 93 UMS. I thought I would get a C.

Reply 10

username2088165

20

Original post by mxskaan

Geography in my opinion is not as easy as everyone says it is. I'm taking my geography GCSE in a few months and I have to remember over 20 case studies and lots of facts and figures for each one. Also you have to be good at different skills such as map reading and there are quite a lot of graph and diagram questions. I do not take history but I really don't think I would be able to cope if I did. However, my friend takes both and she says it requires a lot of commitment so if you are really passionate then I guess you could.

I agree with this. There is a lot of factual information to learn, not just the core geographical concepts, but also the case studies and examples which you need to support and expand your answers. I did Geography for both GCSE and A Level, and whilst it wasn't too bad at GCSE, the sheer amount of stuff to remember really stressed me out and negatively affected my performance at A Level.

I didn't study History at GCSE, so I can't really comment on that. But Geography isn't easy for everyone, it depends how confident you are at remembering factual information, reading maps, interpreting and drawing diagrams etc.

Reply 11

mxskaan

11

Original post by stirkee

haha each to their own

what exam board did you do?

Reply 12

Hari_Mittal

Original post by gdickenson

Is it too hard to take geography as well as my other options (history, French, PE, triple science, maths, english)? Anyone regret doing both or glad that they did?

btw I want to work in medicine when I am older

Hi, Im 15 now and I'n in year 10 and i took history, geography, computing, triple science, maths, english and re and German which we had to do, in my opinion and pretty much all my friends, they say that Geography or History are their favourite subjects, I love Geography and it's so fun in year 9 and 10, and History too. You go on various trips and Geography is probably the subject i look forward most to during the week, and History is also great.

I do not regret taking history or geography whatsoever, they are my favourite subjects and I've heard especially History is great for jobs such as law, and any other job. If you want to take medicine getting high in sciences and maths and maybe english is very important but geography and history are still very good for jobs and are very fun, however to warn you PE for gcse everyone regrets because you don't actually do PE you do theory, if you like that then go for it, and maybe it will help your doctor career as you learn about muscles and etc, but i thought id warn you if you thought you'd get extra sports lesson regularly because you don't.

Reply 13

stirkee

19

Original post by mxskaan

what exam board did you do?

umm I'm not sure, something tells me we did AQA geography but I can't remember

Reply 14

gdickenson

OP

6

Thanks everyone :smile:

I think I'm definitely taking history but I don't know whether I should take geography as well or sociology. From what I've heard, everyone who took both humanities at my school regretted it but then I think taking both would give me a larger choice for A level.

Reply 15

gdickenson

OP

6

The other thing is I have to do the new tests and we have almost no coursework for geography

Reply 16

Amina1232123

Im doing all the subjects that your planning on studying minus PE, so geograph, history, French, triple science, maths, english, textiles and art.
Right now, Im in the middle of my mocks, personally I think with history its easier to revise, if you like the content, which I do. I personally don't think their a difficult combination, because geography isnt as much writing as everyone thinks it is, history is ALL writing, whereas geography is a bit like a science paper you have a combination of different questions with lots of different marks available, however there are ALOT of case studies and facts and figures that need remembering. Hope you make the right decision and enjoy what you do! Good luck

Reply 17

lucy_123

1

I'm in year 13 now but I did French, Spanish, History, Geography, RS, Eng lit, Eng language, maths and triple science at gcse and I got 9 A* and 2A. I didn't find the workload for history and geography an issue at all, what i struggled with the most were the sciences and maths as I'm rubbish at them. Though I guess you must be good at maths etc if you want to work in medicine. At the end of the day, it depends on whether or not you think you'll be able to cope, as they both involve a lot of learning and memorising, though in a different way. Good luck with whatever you pick! !

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Reply 18

username2151383

17

my tactic for geography is to only learn the locations for case studies, write that at the top of a 8 marker and then just generic stuff with no figures
it's working pretty well