Spanish or politics a level!

Hi,
Looking for some advice. I'm in year 11 right now. For my a a levels I'm thinking of doing:
Biology
Chemistry
Psychology
Politics or Spanish
Not sure if I will do 4, but if anyone who has done Spanish or politics, amazing if both, what was that like? I'm predicted a 9 in Spanish and my teacher says I'm the best Spanish speaker she's had. I am very interested in politics, going to a debate competition next week, but not sure if I'll pursue it as a career.
How difficult are these 2 a levels, and what's the demand like? Is there a point if I don't want to do either at uni?
Curious if doing 4 A-levels is worth it too :smile:

Reply 1

McGinger

20

Doing 4 full A levels is a total waste of time - Unis only want 3 and you risk compromising all your grades by taking on too much - remember, AAA will always look better than ABBB.

Unless you intend to apply for languages as a degree subject, do three A levels, and Spanish as AS only.

Bio and Chem would leave 100s of degree subjects open to you, and Politics would be a good essay based subject to introduce you to a whole range of social science ideas.

Reply 2

idek101

6

Original post by kaylab12

Hi,
Looking for some advice. I'm in year 11 right now. For my a a levels I'm thinking of doing:
Biology
Chemistry
Psychology
Politics or Spanish
Not sure if I will do 4, but if anyone who has done Spanish or politics, amazing if both, what was that like? I'm predicted a 9 in Spanish and my teacher says I'm the best Spanish speaker she's had. I am very interested in politics, going to a debate competition next week, but not sure if I'll pursue it as a career.
How difficult are these 2 a levels, and what's the demand like? Is there a point if I don't want to do either at uni?
Curious if doing 4 A-levels is worth it too :smile:

if the teacher has been teaching for a while, so 5 or more years then it shows how good you are. defo pick spanish. as for politics, it's not really debating as most of it is writing and the debates you do have are usually overrun by liberalist/socialist students. but, if you want to pick politics then i'd swap psychology and do bio, chem, spanish and politics, as politics and spanish are both more respected than psychology. if you plan on doing psychology and/or neuroscience at university then psychology's really not required. if anything, spanish and politics show a wide breadth of subjects alongside your sciences. there's also loads of debates in second year of an a level language, all to do with the society, literature, politics, laws and foreign relations within that country.

tldr: pick bio, chem, spanish. i'd say pick politics instead of psych but it doesn't matter really because you've already got three facilitating subjects and neither politics or psychology is bad to take. if four is too much, just drop whatever you don't enjoy as much, whether that be biology, chemistry, spanish, politics or psychology.

hope this helped and if you need any more questions answered then please do ask me i'm active quite a lot rn :smile:

edit: only do four a levels if you can. pick four but if it's too much then drop one since your other grades are at risk. only pick 4 in my opinion if you can get A*A*A*A* or A*A*A*A as if you get A*A*AA or lower then you should have probs just picked three to get 3A*s. dk if that made sense so soz if it didn't

(edited 1 year ago)

Reply 3

kaylab12

OP

3

Original post by idek101

if the teacher has been teaching for a while, so 5 or more years then it shows how good you are. defo pick spanish. as for politics, it's not really debating as most of it is writing and the debates you do have are usually overrun by liberalist/socialist students. but, if you want to pick politics then i'd swap psychology and do bio, chem, spanish and politics, as politics and spanish are both more respected than psychology. if you plan on doing psychology and/or neuroscience at university then psychology's really not required. if anything, spanish and politics show a wide breadth of subjects alongside your sciences. there's also loads of debates in second year of an a level language, all to do with the society, literature, politics, laws and foreign relations within that country.

tldr: pick bio, chem, spanish. i'd say pick politics instead of psych but it doesn't matter really because you've already got three facilitating subjects and neither politics or psychology is bad to take. if four is too much, just drop whatever you don't enjoy as much, whether that be biology, chemistry, spanish, politics or psychology.

hope this helped and if you need any more questions answered then please do ask me i'm active quite a lot rn :smile:

edit: only do four a levels if you can. pick four but if it's too much then drop one since your other grades are at risk. only pick 4 in my opinion if you can get A*A*A*A* or A*A*A*A as if you get A*A*AA or lower then you should have probs just picked three to get 3A*s. dk if that made sense so soz if it didn't

Can I ask why schools don't respect psychology? I'm thinking of doing psychiatry as a career, so I thought it'd be interesting.

Reply 4

idek101

6

Original post by kaylab12

Can I ask why schools don't respect psychology? I'm thinking of doing psychiatry as a career, so I thought it'd be interesting.

it's not not respected, but it's the sort of subject where it's not usually offered at gcse and as a result everyone flocks to pick it at a level, it's the second most picked a level after maths, so isn't as respected. me personally, i would choose to do bio or chem for something like neuroscience as i'm interested in how the brains works and how humans interact, i don't think psychology is very good because it's all about learning disorders and research methods which is why i didn't pick it. if you're thinking about doing psychiatry then i would keep psychology and pick spanish, not politics. i just think politics id maybe slightly more respected than psychology but not by much. you're not at a disadvantage by not picking it, because you've got two facilitating subjects already. i personally just know lots of people hated it because it was all research methods and experiments you had to remember, rather than actual core human mind stuff. if you wanna do it then go for it, as long as you think you can get a good grade

Reply 5

Emma:-)

Entertainment Forum Helper, Careers Forum Helper

19

Original post by kaylab12

Hi,
Looking for some advice. I'm in year 11 right now. For my a a levels I'm thinking of doing:
Biology
Chemistry
Psychology
Politics or Spanish
Not sure if I will do 4, but if anyone who has done Spanish or politics, amazing if both, what was that like? I'm predicted a 9 in Spanish and my teacher says I'm the best Spanish speaker she's had. I am very interested in politics, going to a debate competition next week, but not sure if I'll pursue it as a career.
How difficult are these 2 a levels, and what's the demand like? Is there a point if I don't want to do either at uni?
Curious if doing 4 A-levels is worth it too :smile:

You could always start with 4 and se how you go. Then possibly drop one (your weakest subject) if it gets too much.
Out of the 2, if you are that good at spanish, then id do spanish. It sounds like you would easily get a good grade in it.

Reply 6

Mariam127

2

Hi there! I studied spanish and really enjoyed it. I took Biology, Chemistry and Spanish. It is a big step up from GCSE I would say, but all A levels are and I would not let that discourage you.
The main differences between GCSE in terms of exams:
1) the speaking exam includes your own research project (IRP) which is very interesting if you pick a topic you enjoy researching.
2) the writing exam is where you have to write 2 essays: one on the book and other on the movie (your teacher picks these) I studied La casa de Bernarda Alba and El laberinto del Fauno.

I also offer A level tutoring, kindly get in touch if you are interested!

Spanish or politics a level!

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