A-Level Options for History and Politics / PPE

Hi! I'm a Year 11 student choosing my A-levels subjects right now. I'm hoping to study history and politics, PPE or law at uni and was wondering if anyone had advice on my subject combo?
I'm definitely doing history, politics and maths but for my fourth option, I'm conflicted between English Lit (OCR) and Philosophy (AQA). While philosophy seems more interesting to me, both my sixth form and many other schools have very low rates of A*/A success (1 out of 14 students last year and 1 of 9 the year before), making me hesitant to choose it, as the feasibility of scoring well is an important factor for me; while English Lit does have more students taking it, so there's more resources online, I'm not a big fan of having to memorise quotes word for word like we're doing for gcses. Also, the OCR English Lit grade boundaries are higher.
May I know if any current or past students of these two subjects have any thoughts on which one is best for my subject combo, which is more interesting, how the two subjects are like, and how hard it is to do well generally? Thank you!

Hi! I'm a Year 11 student choosing my A-levels subjects right now. I'm hoping to study history and politics, PPE or law at uni and was wondering if anyone had advice on my subject combo?
I'm definitely doing history, politics and maths but for my fourth option, I'm conflicted between English Lit (OCR) and Philosophy (AQA). While philosophy seems more interesting to me, both my sixth form and many other schools have very low rates of A*/A success (1 out of 14 students last year and 1 of 9 the year before), making me hesitant to choose it, as the feasibility of scoring well is an important factor for me; while English Lit does have more students taking it, so there's more resources online, I'm not a big fan of having to memorise quotes word for word like we're doing for gcses. Also, the OCR English Lit grade boundaries are higher.
May I know if any current or past students of these two subjects have any thoughts on which one is best for my subject combo, which is more interesting, how the two subjects are like, and how hard it is to do well generally? Thank you!

Hi! I'm a Year 11 student choosing my A-levels subjects right now. I'm hoping to study history and politics, PPE or law at uni and was wondering if anyone had advice on my subject combo?
I'm definitely doing history, politics and maths but for my fourth option, I'm conflicted between English Lit (OCR) and Philosophy (AQA). While philosophy seems more interesting to me, both my sixth form and many other schools have very low rates of A*/A success (1 out of 14 students last year and 1 of 9 the year before), making me hesitant to choose it, as the feasibility of scoring well is an important factor for me; while English Lit does have more students taking it, so there's more resources online, I'm not a big fan of having to memorise quotes word for word like we're doing for gcses. Also, the OCR English Lit grade boundaries are higher.
May I know if any current or past students of these two subjects have any thoughts on which one is best for my subject combo, which is more interesting, how the two subjects are like, and how hard it is to do well generally? Thank you!

Hi! I'm a Year 11 student choosing my A-levels subjects right now. I'm hoping to study history and politics, PPE or law at uni and was wondering if anyone had advice on my subject combo?
I'm definitely doing history, politics and maths but for my fourth option, I'm conflicted between English Lit (OCR) and Philosophy (AQA). While philosophy seems more interesting to me, both my sixth form and many other schools have very low rates of A*/A success (1 out of 14 students last year and 1 of 9 the year before), making me hesitant to choose it, as the feasibility of scoring well is an important factor for me; while English Lit does have more students taking it, so there's more resources online, I'm not a big fan of having to memorise quotes word for word like we're doing for gcses. Also, the OCR English Lit grade boundaries are higher.
May I know if any current or past students of these two subjects have any thoughts on which one is best for my subject combo, which is more interesting, how the two subjects are like, and how hard it is to do well generally? Thank you!

Hi, y13 Durham PPE offer holder doing Maths, Bio and English lit here! English literature (alongside history) is regarded as the most academically rigorous humanity you can do, and is looked on far more favourably by universities than philosophy would be. It's also a really interesting course. My advice is engage in philosophy outside of an a level, so I run a society, I entered essay contests, I did online courses and read a lot of papers and articles. If you have any questions don't hesitate to get in touch. Best of luck deciding xx

Hi! I'm a Year 11 student choosing my A-levels subjects right now. I'm hoping to study history and politics, PPE or law at uni and was wondering if anyone had advice on my subject combo?
I'm definitely doing history, politics and maths but for my fourth option, I'm conflicted between English Lit (OCR) and Philosophy (AQA). While philosophy seems more interesting to me, both my sixth form and many other schools have very low rates of A*/A success (1 out of 14 students last year and 1 of 9 the year before), making me hesitant to choose it, as the feasibility of scoring well is an important factor for me; while English Lit does have more students taking it, so there's more resources online, I'm not a big fan of having to memorise quotes word for word like we're doing for gcses. Also, the OCR English Lit grade boundaries are higher.
May I know if any current or past students of these two subjects have any thoughts on which one is best for my subject combo, which is more interesting, how the two subjects are like, and how hard it is to do well generally? Thank you!

hi! congrats on your offer may i know what exam board you do for english lit and what the content is? mine is OCR and i saw that the grade boundaries are quite high. for philosophy outside of school, may i know what you've done externally to engage with it? thank you!

Hey, I got accepted to Oxford History + Politics for 2024 and did History, English Lit, and Physics for my A-levels. I was in a similar boat subject-wise to you since I feared my lack of Politics would disadvantage me. I specifically asked the college if it would and they said it would make no difference. The thing to remember is they don't test knowledge in interviews and the HAT - the exam and int format is designed specifically to test your critical thinking skills and your ability to logically and rationally reason on the spot. Therefore, you don't need any prior experience with the subject.
For my Pol interview, I was shown things I'd never encountered before since I had no formal Politics education. Don't worry - the tutors will explain any concepts if you ask since teachability is a metric they assess you on. Don't be afraid to ask for clarifications - the interviewers want you to succeed.
As your subject combination stands, for HisPol (and also PPE) you are in a very good position. Doing 4 A-levels will make no impact on your competitiveness - offers are dependent on three subjects.

I'm currently in Year 12 and I study politics, philosophy and psychology, but at the start of the year I was studying OCR English literature and language until I transferred to politics. I have quite a few friends who study English lit on it's own and I can safely say, it is a challenge. The grade boundaries for an A/A* are ridiculously high and the subjective nature of the course can make you question your knowledge. I know there are definitely more resources for English, but as a philosophy student there are more textbooks than you think (although barely any past papers since the specification is quite new). I'll admit, philosophy (AQA) is a challenge, but its not the content that's hard, its the exam technique. I personally have been struggling to scrape a B, due to misreading questions and not understanding how to approach essay questions, but I've learned to be more careful when reading now and the last essay that I wrote, I achieved an A* in. You have a very good combination of subjects that are similar but related in certain ways, but I would definitely recommend philosophy over English lit for your final option. Even if people in your school have struggled, that may not be the case for you, especially considering there isn't actually that much content. Philosophy is all routed in precision - a very different approach to your other subjects. You can actually get marked down for talking too much! I don't do history but again, I know people who do and pretty much all of them love it and do well in it. With politics, I personally don't struggle too much but depending on your exam board and specification, you may struggle on things like essays and keeping up to date with current affairs. As a politics student you 100% need to be engaging in at least major political events or political events that interest you. Unfortunately I cannot give you a good review of maths, as everyone I know who does it takes it because they need it and either hates it or doesn't understand it. It is drastically different to GCSE and we do some of it in psychology (research methods), so I can confirm it is hell - but then again, I'm not the best at STEM. I'm sure whichever subject you choose from you'll do great in!

Hi, I am currently studying Politics and History (along with sociology if that may be of interest for you too) I find that history is quite different to GCSE atleast at my sixth form since it is very much based on the exact facts of events rather than knowing about the history surrounding it eg the causes as well if that makes sense? Politics was incredibly surprising for me since I was a little apprehensive but I am hugely enjoying it and feel that it is significantly preparing to do law at university since that it was I aspire to do. I would look into the courses that the other subjects offer since for me sociology ties in very well with the other two since you also learn about legislation and ideologies etc so maybe try to look for any possible links between the other subjects. I have friends who do philosophy and are enjoying it however the exams they do are 3 hours long and there is a lot of pressure based on ensuring you are making clear points (essentially not waffling!) in the subject which can be difficult. If you have any other questions I’d be happy to help!

Thank you so much! I do AQA for English literature. My modules are tragedy and social political protest writing. There's 6 'texts' (two of them are poetry collections) that are assessed and then 2 pieces of coursework as well. It's a LOT of work but it's very rewarding. The grade boundaries are also unfortunately quite high: I think you'd need around 22/25 at least on each essay for an A* in AQA. For philosophy outside of school I entered the Cambridge classics essay contest; I run a philosophy society where we cover a broad range of philosophical topics; I did a 6 month Harvard online course on Genetic editing and the ethics of reproductive technologies; I read quite a few books about different philosophical disciplines and I did two research papers, one on the ethical boundaries of CRISPR, and one on 'just society' as a philosophical concept through time. I would say those were the most significant things. Hope this helped

Hi! I’m currently doing English lit, maths, politics and history and plan on studying PPE at uni (I’m in year 12 now). I find all my subjects really interesting, and there’s a wide enough mix for it not to get dull but there’s also a bit of crossover to make it a bit easier. I don’t have experience of philosophy, but english lit is honestly not as bad as people make it out to be. I do OCR and they give you a lot of choice for most of the questions, and you get to do a greater level of analysis at GCSE. There is very little language analysis, I’m not sure if that will be a good thing for you or not, but instead you focus on critics for the texts and context, then do more language analysis for the Shakespeare play and your coursework. I don’t know if philosophy does have coursework, but I’m really glad about it for english as it takes some of the stress away for final exams, where you only have two papers. Feel free to ask if you have any questions about any of the subjects!

hi! thanks for your advice on english - though i like the subject, the grade boundaries are so high as you said ( could you elaborate on what you mean by the exam technique being hard? is there a lot of content/case studies etc to memorise? thank you!

hi!! thanks for the explanation! your philosophy extracurriculars sound so interesting for english lit, which aspect of the course do you find most challenging? my sixth form does OCR so it might be different, but i've heard that there's a lot of critic opinion memorisation / quote analysis - is that your experience as well?

Hello! I’d say quote memorisation is definitely the most difficult part. Learning critics in the same way you’d learn like.. the analysis that accompanies quotes, that works best for me. But the other aspects aren’t tooo bad. It will take a while to find your essay style, but it will definitely happen if you put the work in.

Hi! I'm a Year 11 student choosing my A-levels subjects right now. I'm hoping to study history and politics, PPE or law at uni and was wondering if anyone had advice on my subject combo?
I'm definitely doing history, politics and maths but for my fourth option, I'm conflicted between English Lit (OCR) and Philosophy (AQA). While philosophy seems more interesting to me, both my sixth form and many other schools have very low rates of A*/A success (1 out of 14 students last year and 1 of 9 the year before), making me hesitant to choose it, as the feasibility of scoring well is an important factor for me; while English Lit does have more students taking it, so there's more resources online, I'm not a big fan of having to memorise quotes word for word like we're doing for gcses. Also, the OCR English Lit grade boundaries are higher.
May I know if any current or past students of these two subjects have any thoughts on which one is best for my subject combo, which is more interesting, how the two subjects are like, and how hard it is to do well generally? Thank you!

Hi!!! I'm a year 12 student and take philsophy (aqa) , english literature (aqa i think?) and drama a level with as global perspectives. Obviously I can't say anything about year 2 yet, but I've heard both are equally difficult second year. Personally, philosophy is my faverioute, and English my second, and whilst philsophy is definetly much harder conceptually, I am predicted a better grade in it so far (a strong A* vs a high A in English). I find philosophy so much more interesting, and am even considering taking it at uni now! I would say that average grades in your school don't really matter if you are comitted to the subject, as I am one of only two with an A* at my school at this stage. I would say that whilst philosphy is harder, and I sometimes have to go over things 3 or 4 times before I understand, English takes more time to revise for, because there are so many set texts and context information. You will have to learn a lot of quotes!!! Whilst english does have more students taking it, it doesn't necessarily equate to more resources because there are so many different set texts for schools to choose from, so there is little online for anything but Shakespeare. If you are taking four a levels, and another essay based, I would say it would probably be easier to take philosophy in terms of managing time, but if you're other subjects are quite difficult like 2 or 3 stem subjects, I would say English would be a good difference. If you do revise and listen in lessons, I think it isn't too hard to get an A* in philosophy (but you do have to do more, very regular revision, like daily or bidaily at least). If you end up taking philosophy and are struggling for resources, I don't mind sending you some example essays and practice questions !!! Another thing to consider is what you want to study at uni. Whilst it doesn't really matter that much, some courses (like law at some unis) require english at a level, but no philosophy degree will require philosophy, so english will open up your options a bit more!!!