GCSE options- History vs Geography

the big question 😬 ....
HISTORY or GEOGRAPHY for gcse (or both lol) !! If anyone has any experience with these subjects or any opinions comparing the two pls share

the big question 😬 ....
HISTORY or GEOGRAPHY for gcse (or both lol) !! If anyone has any experience with these subjects or any opinions comparing the two pls share

good question...
i did both(crazy i know)
geography was straightforward and easy with little revision required
history was a lot harder and required much more independent work, at my school much of the content was taught out of a text book

in the end i neglected geog revision and got a 8
i put all my energy into history which i was struggling across the 2 year course (5s and 6s) and came out with a 9
if taking geography you should have an interest to carry you through it
if taking history i would recommend dedicating a lot of the time on learning and retaining facts and learning exam technique for the specific questions.

funnily enough i am now studying geography at a level and have applied to do a degree in it next year it’s really down to what you prefer
and don’t be afriad to take both if you can’t chose!!

what did you do for your geog revision for your GCSE's i'm struggling a lot!

i was so busy studying history geog took a back seat for me....
but i would say make sure you learn your case studies inside out and you are able to quote specific facts for these. i used quizlets to make a set of flash cards with one word answers that i would test myself on regularly coming up to exams.
make sure you can name drop examples, especially in longer answers.
have a good idea as to what mark schemes look like for the data analysis questions as these usually follow a similar pattern and can be mastered to secure full marks here
hope this helped )

the big question 😬 ....
HISTORY or GEOGRAPHY for gcse (or both lol) !! If anyone has any experience with these subjects or any opinions comparing the two pls share

good question...
i did both(crazy i know)
geography was straightforward and easy with little revision required
history was a lot harder and required much more independent work, at my school much of the content was taught out of a text book

in the end i neglected geog revision and got a 8
i put all my energy into history which i was struggling across the 2 year course (5s and 6s) and came out with a 9
if taking geography you should have an interest to carry you through it
if taking history i would recommend dedicating a lot of the time on learning and retaining facts and learning exam technique for the specific questions.

funnily enough i am now studying geography at a level and have applied to do a degree in it next year it’s really down to what you prefer
and don’t be afriad to take both if you can’t chose!!

i was so busy studying history geog took a back seat for me....
but i would say make sure you learn your case studies inside out and you are able to quote specific facts for these. i used quizlets to make a set of flash cards with one word answers that i would test myself on regularly coming up to exams.
make sure you can name drop examples, especially in longer answers.
have a good idea as to what mark schemes look like for the data analysis questions as these usually follow a similar pattern and can be mastered to secure full marks here
hope this helped )

I did both!! What do you want to do at uni? For example, if a particular course needs a gcse in history, then do history, if it needs a gcse in geography, do geography. If the course has no preference or doesn’t specify either as part of their entry requirements, then do the one you enjoy the most and the one you feel you’ll do better in. From personal experience, geography is easier to do well in. Geography paper 3 is basically analysis of your fieldwork and some preliminary material, which you will have analysed in class about a month beforehand. Papers 1 and 2 can be revised for with thorough prep. On the other hand, history is far more picky! If you’re good at English and essay writing, while also being good at remembering many dates, maybe history is the one for you. One thing I’d suggest you seek from you teacher, is the topics that you’ll study as part of the course (since there’s a choice). Then go from there; remember, your judgement will probably be better than what anyone tells you on here (although you may gain valuable guidance here!) if you have any further question about the courses or my personal experience, I’d be happy to answer those! Good luck!

I went with history in the end (though I know several people who did both geography AND history!) since I liked the history teachers' methods of teaching the content. I sat my GCSE exams in 2019 so here's my opinions of GCSE history, on the AQA exam board:

Positives:
-On AQA (I'm pretty sure its the same or similar for other exam boards) you do 4 topics, which are generally different eras or even specialist sub-topics! This means that you get the chance to read in-depth around a few areas and really understand them. You end up knowing the entire story behind events which I thought was pretty interesting.
-Because you're reading around 4 areas, at least one of them has gotta interest you, right?
-Lots of great resources online for learning content, especially BBC documentaries and movies to help you learn content, or just to watch as a bit of fun. You'll probably find that your teacher will use videos from time to time in your class- this is actually really fun!
-It's essay based and you need to know facts, but you can often form your own opinion in your answer. I think this makes it more engaging to learn about because you're not just being told what to think.
-The textbooks are pretty good in my opinion

Negatives:
-Most schools pick the 4 topics that you learn (they're different papers, so the schools can mix and match quite a bit. You'll probably find that the other schools in your town are doing different topics to you.) so you're usually stuck with what you're given. This isn't the worst thing in the world and you'll probably end up finding certain things better than you thought they'd be, but personally I think it would be better if you could choose.
- There's 4 topics and I think the GCSE content is taught over 2 years, sometimes 3. This means that if you find one topic really boring, you're stuck with it for 5-6 months and maybe more.
-It's content heavy, and you need to do a lot of revision to remember all those dates! Like seriously, there is a LOT of content so you need to be organised.
-It's an essay subject so it kinda hurts your hand when you're writing loads in the exam hahah
-Had to do a case study which was boring, but geography makes you do one or more of these, so I guess that's not really a negative?

Why I chose it over geography, and why I think it's better:
Tbh the teachers played a large part in my decision (I know they say not to do this, but my history teachers were legends and my geography teachers were kinda scary). Also I thought it'd be more interesting for me, it was a bit more creative since you can write about your own opinions and it sounded better than learning about rocks and rivers. I didn't do geography after all, so what would I know? My sister did and so did some of my friends, they enjoyed it so it's up to you. Geography seemed more science-y and I was doing separate science too so I didn't wanna overload myself. But if you look at me now, I'm doing biology, chemistry, maths A-Levels so I guess I can't really be out-scienced anymore than I already am :P

Also its definitely worth thinking about if you know what you wanna do in the future. If you want to go down an English-y/ politics/ law route then definitely consider history. If you want to do something with geography or environmental biology then consider geography. This isn't the be-all and end-all though, it just might be useful if you decided to do those subjects in your a-levels. Personally I haven't touched history for 2 years now (unless watching an episode of horrible histories counts??) and I'm applying to medicine at university, so as you can see it hasn't particularly influenced my decision that much.

this helped immensely thx xx

wow tysm - this is superb advice ! I’m finding so many helpful ppl on TSR
As for uni...I probs wanna do a BA in English or history or languages so I’m not sure about geog , even though I find human geography rlly interesting

you are very welcome!! please can you let us know what other subjects you are hoping to take and if you have any idea what you wanna do in alevels or even beyond that?! would be helpful to offer more specific advice!!
please let me know if you have anymore questions!! happy to answer, nice distraction from upcoming mock revision!! )

Aw thank you! Tsr can be a gem sometimes ahh! If you want to do a BA in English/History/Languages, then I don’t think geography would be beneficial for you! If you want to do a BA in history, I’m guessing you’d have to do it at A Level; therefore having a gcse in it will be advantageous/necessary. If you were to do English at degree level, then doing history will be great since you’ll get extra practice at analysis (which is also where all the marks are at for gcse!) Human geography is great and was my favourite too, but from what I can remember, there wasn’t too much human geography in my aqa gcse course, there’s more focus on physical geography imo!