Classics or Geography GCSE

3

Hi my son has to choose his options - he has chosen history and has one more choice - classics or geography. Would Classics and History be too much together. I have heard georgrahy is hard due to sheer volume of topics. He would enjoy Classics more but he is already doing 10 GCSEs so we need something that he will enjoy and isn't too hard

Reply 1

Neri_56

8

Original post

by TNM47

Hi my son has to choose his options - he has chosen history and has one more choice - classics or geography. Would Classics and History be too much together. I have heard georgrahy is hard due to sheer volume of topics. He would enjoy Classics more but he is already doing 10 GCSEs so we need something that he will enjoy and isn't too hard

Hii I’m a year 12 who did both classics and Geography gcse and I can say that classics was BY FAR the most interesting and favourable topic over geography.

I did AQA geography and it was the dullest of my subjects. So content heavy and the content was very bland and boring such as memorising facts about a specific region affected by a natural disaster. Hated every second of it

Classics was one of my most favourite GCSEs and I take it for A-level now! The content is very cool, in my module I learned about sacrifices, gladiators, funerals,greek mythology, festivals and very famous literary works from Pliny, Plutarch and Ovid. Classics is also a very highly regarded subject and taking it at gcse is not very common which would make you stand out! However since the board is OCR the grade boundaries will be higher as many private schools offer this course

In conclusion, I think at GCSE the best thing is to enjoy the subject rather than taking the easier one as the content at gcse is more base level than A-levels which are harder. Classics is very interesting to revise which would motivate your son to study for it even during GCSE stress in April/may. Both geography and classics are content heavy it’s just that classics has more interesting topics. Although I can’t speak about history since I didn’t take it I can say that one of my friends who took both history and classics actually ended up liking classics more

I hope this has helped your son pick his GCSEs!

Reply 2

TNM47

OP

3

Original post

by Neri_56

Hii I’m a year 12 who did both classics and Geography gcse and I can say that classics was BY FAR the most interesting and favourable topic over geography.
I did AQA geography and it was the dullest of my subjects. So content heavy and the content was very bland and boring such as memorising facts about a specific region affected by a natural disaster. Hated every second of it
Classics was one of my most favourite GCSEs and I take it for A-level now! The content is very cool, in my module I learned about sacrifices, gladiators, funerals,greek mythology, festivals and very famous literary works from Pliny, Plutarch and Ovid. Classics is also a very highly regarded subject and taking it at gcse is not very common which would make you stand out! However since the board is OCR the grade boundaries will be higher as many private schools offer this course
In conclusion, I think at GCSE the best thing is to enjoy the subject rather than taking the easier one as the content at gcse is more base level than A-levels which are harder. Classics is very interesting to revise which would motivate your son to study for it even during GCSE stress in April/may. Both geography and classics are content heavy it’s just that classics has more interesting topics. Although I can’t speak about history since I didn’t take it I can say that one of my friends who took both history and classics actually ended up liking classics more
I hope this has helped your son pick his GCSEs!

Thank you so much - did you do Classics alongside History as he has chosen History too.

Reply 3

VaBook7

11

Hi, I take geography, history and latin as a y11 (although latin is different to classics the culture unit is pretty similar).
Personally I'd ask you son whether he'd like to understand lots of things and apply it to questions (geography) or learn lots of stories and copy them out (classics and history). If you're worried about classics and history being similar don't be as the content is completely different and if he has a good memory it should be fine.
Also ask your son what he wants to do in the future, if it's sciences then I would recommend geography, english/ languages/ 'soft subjects' like art/drama then classics, and if maths then either 🙂

Reply 4

LoocAtlas

8

I think Geography was my favourite GCSE, and I now take it for A-Level. I took it alongside History, Latin and French and found it was an interesting course since you do both physical and human, with some cool fieldwork trips too. At the end of the day, he should pick whatever one he finds more enjoyable as that usually translates to what you’ll be motivated to revise, and hence do well in.

Reply 5

ExamYearsStudent

10

Original post

by TNM47

Hi my son has to choose his options - he has chosen history and has one more choice - classics or geography. Would Classics and History be too much together. I have heard georgrahy is hard due to sheer volume of topics. He would enjoy Classics more but he is already doing 10 GCSEs so we need something that he will enjoy and isn't too hard

I have done classics and history all the way up and absolutely adore it!! Classics and geography are about the same difficulty level, but I know a lot of people who struggle with geography because they find it immensely boring. I would say totally go for Classics, even ignoring my personal opinion, having interest/enjoying a subject makes a world of difference at GCSE stage 🙂

Reply 6

PinkMobilePhone

Chat Forum Helper, Life & Style Forum Helper

22

I'm biased as my degree is in Classics, but Classics 😉

My daughter did History & Classics & Ancient History as IGCSE / GCSEs

Reply 7

curiousfia

5

Original post

by TNM47

Hi my son has to choose his options - he has chosen history and has one more choice - classics or geography. Would Classics and History be too much together. I have heard georgrahy is hard due to sheer volume of topics. He would enjoy Classics more but he is already doing 10 GCSEs so we need something that he will enjoy and isn't too hard

hi there, I’m someone who did an Ancient Greek GCSE with history and found that they went just fine together. In my experience, I chose to do a classics-minded GCSE as I found it far more interesting compared to the vast subject matter you have to cover in geography, especially as I only found human geography interesting. I think he should choose what he finds most enjoyable as geography may be easier, but is much more dense. Hope that helps !

Classics or Geography GCSE

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