chemistry vs psychology

im in year 12 and a week away from picking my a-level. i want to go into business management/marketing. i am already know i will do maths and histroy and unsure about the last one. i enjoy chemistry currently except for the organic chemistry topic which i found out is 50% a-level course. it also app disregards everything yo learnt at gcse. psychology would be more useful for marketing but it is an essya subject. i am already taking an essay subject and often struggle with them. if pyschology is marked similarly to english or pe (aqa guidleines) i dont think i can do it as i always stuggle with answering those questions. but is it is marked similarly to history (edexcel) or rs (ocr), then i think i can do it

so i need to know how its marked according to other subject. also another thing is that i am naturallly slightly better at chemistry (sciency subjects) over essay based subject.

i also cant take both and drop one at the end of year 12. if we take 4 subject at my school we have to stick with all of them.

(edited 1 month ago)

Reply 1

DataVenia

Volunteer Team, Clearing and Applications Advisor

21

Original post by iamthehuman

im in year 12 and a week away from picking my a-level. i want to go into business management/marketing. i am already know i will do maths and histroy and unsure about the last one. i enjoy chemistry currently except for the organic chemistry topic which i found out is 50% a-level course. it also app disregards everything yo learnt at gcse. psychology would be more useful for marketing but it is an essya subject. i am already taking an essay subject and often struggle with them. if pyschology is marked similarly to english or pe (aqa guidleines) i dont think i can do it as i always stuggle with answering those questions. but is it is marked similarly to history (edexcel) or rs (ocr), then i think i can do it

so i need to know how its marked according to other subject. also another thing is that i am naturallly slightly better at chemistry (sciency subjects) over essay based subject.

You specifically mentioned exam boards for every subject except Psychology. If you were to study Psychology, which exam board would it be with?

Also, although Psychology can have long-answer questions in it, it is generally considered a science and will include the study of how the brain works, interpretation or data, statistics etc. So it's more of a hybrid between the sort of questions you might expect to see in a "pure" science subject like Chemistry, and what you might expect to see in a more essay-based subject like History.

Reply 2

iamthehuman

OP

5

Original post by DataVenia

You specifically mentioned exam boards for every subject except Psychology. If you were to study Psychology, which exam board would it be with?
Also, although Psychology can have long-answer questions in it, it is generally considered a science and will include the study of how the brain works, interpretation or data, statistics etc. So it's more of a hybrid between the sort of questions you might expect to see in a "pure" science subject like Chemistry, and what you might expect to see in a more essay-based subject like History.

psychology at my school would be aqa which is apparently harder than edexcel?? i know that psychology is an essay based science but want to know if its level marked like pe and english or mark per point like rs and history

Reply 3

DataVenia

Volunteer Team, Clearing and Applications Advisor

21

Original post by iamthehuman

psychology at my school would be aqa which is apparently harder than edexcel?? i know that psychology is an essay based science but want to know if its level marked like pe and english or mark per point like rs and history

Whether an individual student finds one exam board or another easier or harder would depend on the nature of that individual student, but overall, they're very similar.

Last year, for AQA A Level Psychology (code 7182):
• 5.9% got at A*
• 13.6% got an A, and
• 26.8% got a B. (source)

Last year, for Edexcel A Level Psychology (code 9PS0):
• 6.1% got at A*
• 14.1% got an A, and
• 23.9% got a B. (source)

So more Edexcel students got at A or above than AQA students, but more AQA students got a B or above than Edexcel students. So I'm not really sure it's fair to say that either is intrinsically harder.

Anyway, for AQA here are some recent question papers:
• AQA A Level Psychology - Question Paper - Paper 1 - Introductory topics in psychology - Summer 2023
• AQA A Level Psychology - Question Paper - Paper 2 - Psychology in context - Summer 2023
• AQA A Level Psychology - Question Paper - Paper 3 - Issues and options in psychology - Summer 2023

The matching mark schemes are:
• AQA A Level Psychology - Mark Scheme - Paper 1 - Introductory topics in psychology - Summer 2023
• AQA A Level Psychology - Mark Scheme - Paper 2 - Psychology in context - Summer 2023
• AQA A Level Psychology - Mark Scheme - Paper 3 - Issues and options in psychology - Summer 2023

You can therefore see for yourself how the marks are distributed between different types of question. It's a mix of the two marking styles you describe.

Reply 4

Billie LJ

4

I take both chem and psych, ocr a and aqa, i really struggled with chem for most of y12 mainly b.c of ochem but just the massive change whilst i fell in love with psychology! I would say that chemistry is aided with maths but for marketing psychology would be a very useful subject. Psychology essay question are pretty similar to Edexcel history 16 markers from what i recall. Considering you will be taking history as well, you will be doing lots of essays so I think to avoid the essays take chemistry but make sure that you use your teachers, books etc to help with getting the hang of ochem bc by getting the basis of ochem it become a lot easier 🙂 sorry if this lacks structure/ doesnt make sense but i hope this helps!

Reply 5

TypicalNerd

18

Original post by iamthehuman

im in year 12 and a week away from picking my a-level. i want to go into business management/marketing. i am already know i will do maths and histroy and unsure about the last one. i enjoy chemistry currently except for the organic chemistry topic which i found out is 50% a-level course. it also app disregards everything yo learnt at gcse. psychology would be more useful for marketing but it is an essya subject. i am already taking an essay subject and often struggle with them. if pyschology is marked similarly to english or pe (aqa guidleines) i dont think i can do it as i always stuggle with answering those questions. but is it is marked similarly to history (edexcel) or rs (ocr), then i think i can do it
so i need to know how its marked according to other subject. also another thing is that i am naturallly slightly better at chemistry (sciency subjects) over essay based subject.
i also cant take both and drop one at the end of year 12. if we take 4 subject at my school we have to stick with all of them.

I’m pretty sure physical chemistry actually is the largest aspect of any A level chemistry course offered in the UK - this should go hand in hand with A level maths as you will be familiar with logarithms and index laws, which come up routinely in some way. As for A level chemistry disregarding everything you learnt at GCSE, there is some truth to that (particularly with electron configurations) but much of what you study (particularly in year 12) is a repeat of what you learnt at GCSE with some extra stuff added.

I have no experience of studying psychology at A level, but I have heard mixed opinions of it from peers who studied it at my sixth form. I would encourage you to look into it by finding the relevant specification and seeing if the material within appeals. My understanding is that you will have some maths to do for psychology (mostly statistics) and much of it goes beyond the syllabus of ordinary A level maths (pretty much all of it is covered in further maths). That is not to say the maths is unreasonably difficult as I found the statistics in further maths much easier than that of ordinary A level maths.

Reply 6

iamthehuman

OP

5

thanks!

chemistry vs psychology

Quick Reply

Related discussions

Articles for you