A level maths vs geography- what is harder?

School_Student99

I'm just interested to hear peoples thoughts because I've heard many different opinions :smile:

Reply 1

Geo Lover 7

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Original post

by School_Student99

I'm just interested to hear peoples thoughts because I've heard many different opinions :smile:

Maths is harder for me personally. There's some A-Level Maths in A-Level Geography which I'm going to have to get my head around though.

Reply 2

School_Student99

Original post

by Geo Lover 7

Maths is harder for me personally. There's some A-Level Maths in A-Level Geography which I'm going to have to get my head around though.

Hello, thanks for the response! Which exam board do you do for A-level geography, and how are you finding it?

The only thing that is slightly putting me off of geography is the fact that the exams are essay based so I am worried that the marks you gain are subjective to the examiners opinion. What are your thoughts on this?

Many thanks :smile:

Reply 3

Geo Lover 7

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Original post

by School_Student99

Hello, thanks for the response! Which exam board do you do for A-level geography, and how are you finding it?
The only thing that is slightly putting me off of geography is the fact that the exams are essay based so I am worried that the marks you gain are subjective to the examiners opinion. What are your thoughts on this?
Many thanks :smile:

I'm doing AQA.
Half the marks in the 20 mark essays are AO1 (Knowledge) while the other half are AO2 (Analysis/Evaluation) so I'd say the mark scheme isn't that subjective.
There are 3 of these essays in paper 1 and paper 2 though. There's also an NEA worth 20% of the grade which can be about anything on the specification.

Reply 4

Iqster

Hi, I take both maths and geography. I’d say, geography is harder if you struggle with writing
Maths isn’t horrible as long as you practice a lot
I personally find both pretty difficult, Id say geo is slightly easier for me but it’s only because of the lower grade boundaries

Reply 5

19whitec

Hi, I take both too and ngl I think geography is really content heavy but if you keep up with it it's a lot less complicated than maths. I guess it depends whether you are better at the logical side of maths or long answers in geography

Reply 6

Geo Lover 7

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@agent_duck343 what do you think?

Reply 7

AhsokaTano-

I do both (edexcel)

Maths is difficult as you need to practice everything, but it is easier to grasp.
Geography has easy content but its coursework is a pain and its harder for me to answer longer answers bc im not the best at essays/English writing

Reply 8

agent_duck343

Study Forum Helper

Heyyy

thanks for the tag @Geo Lover 7

I am in year 12 and take a level maths and geography both edexcel
I like different aspects of both subjects but I prefer geography because I find the content more interesting and some of the concepts in maths are harder to understand. It depends on personal opinion though because they are quite different subjects with not much overlap. It also depends on whether you find practice and logical methods or essays and analytical thinking easier.
Hope this helps xx

Reply 9

Bear-on-water

I think Maths in general would be a harder a level but maths is also more employable and i say would be a better a level to do in the general sense. I think maths does have higher grade boundaries than geography so maybe maths is harder in that sense?

imo , the nea was probably the most tedious thing ive done , and the geography content was just too much and boring. I do regret not taking maths , but idk if it is a lot harder . i think it does depend on each individual , some people would find maths hard and some would find it easy , vice versa for geography.

Reply 10

Geo Lover 7

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Original post

by Bear-on-water

I think Maths in general would be a harder a level but maths is also more employable and i say would be a better a level to do in the general sense. I think maths does have higher grade boundaries than geography so maybe maths is harder in that sense?
imo , the nea was probably the most tedious thing ive done , and the geography content was just too much and boring. I do regret not taking maths , but idk if it is a lot harder . i think it does depend on each individual , some people would find maths hard and some would find it easy , vice versa for geography.

Maths is more employable?
That's not true unless you're going to a mathematical job when you're older. It's only a better A-Level if you do well in maths and like/enjoy maths.

Reply 11

School_Student99

Wow thank you all so much for responding, I really appreciate all of you sharing your knowledge with me! :smile:

Reply 12

Banana_99

Original post

by School_Student99

I'm just interested to hear peoples thoughts because I've heard many different opinions :smile:

I found both a levels very challenging throughout the whole 2 years. I think the content of a level maths is harder to grasp conceptually than geography. But overall I would say I found geography harder because of the volume of work required. I had to balance my NEA with lots of reading textbook pages/writing essays/exam revision. Whereas with maths it was simple to get a good mark if you did a reasonable amount of practice questions on every topic each week. Towards my a level exams, for maths all I did was mainly a couple of past papers each week which overall probably took around 5 hours. But for geography I was still learning new content a few weeks before the exams because there was so much to cover (maths finished all the a level content by February). And I had to revise a lot of old content I had forgotten from year 12 like volcanoes/earthquakes or globalisation that I practically hadn't touched for a year or so. Another annoying thing was with maths I could mark all my work myself but for geography I had to meet up with my teacher to get him to mark my essays and he was very busy and didn't have much free time.

Reply 13

labyr5nth

Original post

by School_Student99

I'm just interested to hear peoples thoughts because I've heard many different opinions :smile:

It depends on the person. I'm a very mathematical minded person so a level maths is a breeze compared to any other a level. however some find geo easier because they may tend towards that etc etc it just depends I wouldn't say any subject is objectively harder than another