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Should I pick A level psychology or Biology?

Hi,
For A level I have chosen maths, further maths and physics, and I would like to study computer science at uni.
At the moment, I am deciding whether to choose biology or psychology alongside my current choices. I would really appreciate it if someone could give me some advice on factors such as the workload and time needed for revision.
Thanks!

Reply 1

Maisiefranco2003

I currently take both biology and psychology. To take computer science at uni id say both are as good as each other as choices but if i had to go with one id say biology. I find biology taking up more of my revision time than psychology. Both have a lot of content to remember but, I find psychology to have more content that is basically common sense and that majority of the content is not hard to grasp/comprehend. Biology has a lot more content that may take a while to wrap your head around especially the processes that you will need to know inside and out and in detail. Exam wise, they both have three, two hour exams at the end and biology has practical assessments as an element as well. Psychology exams are a lot more lenient in the mark schemes and forgiving if you describe the meaning of a term you cant remember whereas, biology mark schemes are very specific in key terms and phrases you have to include so it can be frustrating. Biology paper 3 includes a 25 mark essay and the rest of questions will mainly be between 1 and maybe 7 or 8 marks, Psychology paper include mainly questions of 1,2,3,4,6,8 marks maybe a 10 or 12 mark question for 'designing a study' and essay questions are 16 marks which are generally 1-4 a paper. Id look at a few requirements for uni courses, if they require you to study another science alongside your physics, psychology is not always included as a science. I find psychology to be a much more enjoyable subject overall which can motivate me to revise and I find biology to have certain aspects that are a real bore, for me i like genetics but cant stand plants. Id definitely look at the specification for each subject on which ever exam boards website your course may be.

Reply 2

LadyBookworm

Great! Thank you so much, this is really helpful! :smile:

Reply 3

SupposedlyIronic

Psychology is probably easier but less widely respected. It may tie into computer science depending on what you want to do with it?

Reply 4

racave8258

Original post by LadyBookworm

This is a very easy choice as someone who is going to do Computer Science at uni and does CS and Psychology at Alevel i can guarrentte that youll have a much easier time doing psychology. I have a few mates who do Biology so i know that bio is very content heavy aswell as you need to be very accurate during exams to gain marks form the markscheme. So i would acctually reccomend you do psychology. Its very easy to understand and mark schemes are pretty relaxed