english language or history A-LEVEL

Hey, so I finished my GCSEs a couple of weeks ago and now A levels are next, ofc . But I'm rethinking my options. I want to get into vetmed and am 100% taking chemistry and biology, and maybe maths studies (so core maths, not the full maths A level because I kind of suck at maths and there's no way I'd be able to get an A in it, and technically it's not required). Originally, I was going to take history because I find it interesting and got consistent 9s throughout year 10 and 11, while I was getting 8s for English. However, for the final exam, I ended up cramming history, so I'm predicting myself a 7, which is okay, but I think I did better in English language, which I'm predicting myself an 8 for. I was also considering content-wise, as from what I've seen, history has a lot more content than English language (of course, both are hard, but history has more to memorize), and I do enjoy English language. Anyway, any advice or suggestions or any helpful responses, I'll be grateful for 🙏

Reply 1

aabbi_gel

Well, I can't advise you what to choose because ultimately, it is your choice, but as someone who took both exams this year, I think I could give you a general idea of these subjects. English is quite straightforward. Papers 1 and 2 cover the same topics as GCSE English did but far more extensively. Paper 3 and 4 is completely different. You will study about how english changed over the course of history and child language acquisition, so you will have to memorize a bunch of theorists. But, honestly, it wasn't bad at all. And it has a great endorsed textbook (Cambridge International board btw). For History, if you studied the Edexcel European option, then the contents aren't that much different at all, they only go into more detail (WW1, French Revolution, Russian Revolution, Stalin, Hitler, etc.) HOWEVER, the exam format and how you must structure the essay are REALLY annoying. And they give you so little time, so this is definitely the harder subject in terms of how hard the exam is. Also, paper 3 and 4 CIE History DOESN'T HAVE A TEXTBOOK! Can you believe that? Basically it is supposed to be a 'research-based' exam, which means that if you miss one day of history class in your college where your teacher provides you with the material (or even worse, like me, homeschooled, so you need to hire a tutor) then you are in a very uncomfortable situation. But, admittedly, I still found History to be the more interesting subject because of its content. Also, I can't speak for every other exam board. Others might have proper textbooks and less annoying exam formats, so really ask your college about it. Choose wisely. Hope this helps!

Reply 2

Orange Blossom

Original post by vikkkkkkkkkk

I did both. I got an 8 in History, 9 in English at GCSEs. Just be aware that English Language is very different. Yiu have to work on Child Language Acquisition, Genderlects, Ethnolects, basically a lot of sociology is thrown into it. I really hated this, and wish I had done something else. But of course if this stuff sounds good I would say do that. Best thing would be to go to the AQA website and download some exemplar answers for English Language and History. Read the answers and you might find that English looks nothing like you would want to do,or the same for history. Also, there is coursework for both of them. 🙂 I did AQA btw and was homeschooled like the other poster so I also had to get a tutor :frown:

(edited 12 months ago)

Reply 3

abiiorbfiafl

hiya i did aqa for english language and it turned out to be my favourite subject at level - I couldn't recommend it enough! its 80% exam based I think and then 20% coursework where you write your own piece and analyse it and you research into anything of your own choice (I did the language used in Virginia slims advertisements in terms of how it targets women, others analysed Charles manson's trials manuscripts - anything you want!). then the exams are split into two papers - paper one is very analysis based where you analyse texts (similar to gcse but greater detail) one old text and one modern text and also you do one child language acquisition question which covers how children learn to speak, write, read etc. then paper two there is one more analysis question comparing two texts, a write your own article - which will link to topics you cover such as gender and language or power and language and you incorporate theories into that and an evaluate question which again is on theories about sociolects, how language changes over time etc. - I found this all extremely interesting, theories was my favourite and strongest part over analysis and I highly recommend you take it - I found the work load much less for english than I did for any of my other alevels