How much is the step up between GCSE and each A-level subject?
11
I'm planning on taking 4 of maths, further maths, geography, economics, latin or french, depending on the school. I was wondering 1) if anyone had any recommendations for or against these and 2) how hard A-levels are (I know they're difficult) in comparison to GCSEs? E.g. are the twice as hard? Thank you 
Reply 1
I've personally taken both maths, and further maths. Maths was not too bad, but further maths was a massive ordeal (I dropped it). It took up around 70% of my time. Personally, I would advise against taking further maths unless fully necessary. If your desired course lists it as a necessary or optional subject, you might have to take it (if you're applying to a top university).
I haven't taken the other subjects before, but I heard economics is quite hard. I always have classmates lamenting about it.
I haven't taken the other subjects before, but I heard economics is quite hard. I always have classmates lamenting about it.
Original post
by VaBook7I'm planning on taking 4 of maths, further maths, geography, economics, latin or french, depending on the school. I was wondering 1) if anyone had any recommendations for or against these and 2) how hard A-levels are (I know they're difficult) in comparison to GCSEs? E.g. are the twice as hard? Thank you
Reply 3
For Latin, here are some main differences between GCSE and A Level off the top of my head. Source: I'm a Latin tutor (former teacher).
In my experience, the biggest step up is generally felt on the Language side rather than Literature. This is because for the GCSE Language paper, you're translating texts that are written especially by non-Romans (examiners), or heavily adapted for ease of translation, with shorter sentences, less complex syntax, and a generous amount of punctuation to guide you through. At A Level, though, the unseen passages are drawn from original Roman texts. The students who find this jump in difficulty most manageable are those who know their GCSE grammar and vocab inside out, and so have a firm foundation to build on.
Vocab list
- GCSE: assigned vocab list. It's possible to get by on recognition of Latin words rather than thorough knowledge of all details like spellings, noun genders, all four principal parts, etc.
- A Level: no assigned vocab list; learn as much vocab as possible from various lists and via translation practice. Without thorough knowledge of the finer details, translation will be very difficult.
Grammar
- GCSE: Possible to get away with not knowing all the charts by heart (e.g. 4th & 5th declension; relative pronouns), and still score highly in the Language paper.
- A Level: not a huge number of additional grammar topics and charts to learn, and many of these are extensions of GCSE. BUT these need to be learned thoroughly, and it's harder to cut corners like at GCSE and still have a good outcome.
Unseen translation
- GCSE: prose passages only; no original Roman texts.
- A Level: one prose and one verse passage (including 2 lines of scansion), unadapted, original texts. The level of difficulty is similar to the unadapted set texts studied at GCSE, like Virgil, Ovid, Catullus. The difference is that at GCSE, the teacher typically supplies a lot of vocab and grammar support, and then students memorise a translation in advance, whereas at A Level, you do these as unprepared translations in the exam.
Prose composition (English to Latin) - optional at both GCSE and A Level
- GCSE: three sentences of around 20 words total, featuring vocab drawn only from restricted list and simple grammatical constructions.
- A Level: continuous narrative of around 150 words total; no assigned vocab list; no restrictions on grammatical constructions. However, for this paper, schools/candidates can choose to do a Comprehension of similar difficulty level instead.
Literature
- GCSE (OCR): one prose & one verse set text (approx. 110-120 lines each), unless you're doing the Lit & Culture module.
- A Level: two prose & two verse set texts (approx 220 lines each).
Good luck with your decision Latin is a difficult A Level, but a good one (well, I would say that)!
In my experience, the biggest step up is generally felt on the Language side rather than Literature. This is because for the GCSE Language paper, you're translating texts that are written especially by non-Romans (examiners), or heavily adapted for ease of translation, with shorter sentences, less complex syntax, and a generous amount of punctuation to guide you through. At A Level, though, the unseen passages are drawn from original Roman texts. The students who find this jump in difficulty most manageable are those who know their GCSE grammar and vocab inside out, and so have a firm foundation to build on.
Vocab list
- GCSE: assigned vocab list. It's possible to get by on recognition of Latin words rather than thorough knowledge of all details like spellings, noun genders, all four principal parts, etc.
- A Level: no assigned vocab list; learn as much vocab as possible from various lists and via translation practice. Without thorough knowledge of the finer details, translation will be very difficult.
Grammar
- GCSE: Possible to get away with not knowing all the charts by heart (e.g. 4th & 5th declension; relative pronouns), and still score highly in the Language paper.
- A Level: not a huge number of additional grammar topics and charts to learn, and many of these are extensions of GCSE. BUT these need to be learned thoroughly, and it's harder to cut corners like at GCSE and still have a good outcome.
Unseen translation
- GCSE: prose passages only; no original Roman texts.
- A Level: one prose and one verse passage (including 2 lines of scansion), unadapted, original texts. The level of difficulty is similar to the unadapted set texts studied at GCSE, like Virgil, Ovid, Catullus. The difference is that at GCSE, the teacher typically supplies a lot of vocab and grammar support, and then students memorise a translation in advance, whereas at A Level, you do these as unprepared translations in the exam.
Prose composition (English to Latin) - optional at both GCSE and A Level
- GCSE: three sentences of around 20 words total, featuring vocab drawn only from restricted list and simple grammatical constructions.
- A Level: continuous narrative of around 150 words total; no assigned vocab list; no restrictions on grammatical constructions. However, for this paper, schools/candidates can choose to do a Comprehension of similar difficulty level instead.
Literature
- GCSE (OCR): one prose & one verse set text (approx. 110-120 lines each), unless you're doing the Lit & Culture module.
- A Level: two prose & two verse set texts (approx 220 lines each).
Good luck with your decision
Latin is a difficult A Level, but a good one (well, I would say that)!Reply 4
Original post
by VaBook7I'm planning on taking 4 of maths, further maths, geography, economics, latin or french, depending on the school. I was wondering 1) if anyone had any recommendations for or against these and 2) how hard A-levels are (I know they're difficult) in comparison to GCSEs? E.g. are the twice as hard? Thank you
at GCSE i did wjec for geography and ive just finished it for a level today this time for edexcel. personally for me it wasn't a big step up from GCSE difficulty wise just a bit more content to learn but a lot of it is very similar to what you learn at GCSE. was definitely one of the 'easier' subjects to do!
Original post
by majaxroseat GCSE i did wjec for geography and ive just finished it for a level today this time for edexcel. personally for me it wasn't a big step up from GCSE difficulty wise just a bit more content to learn but a lot of it is very similar to what you learn at GCSE. was definitely one of the 'easier' subjects to do!
Reply 6
13
Original post
by VaBook7I'm planning on taking 4 of maths, further maths, geography, economics, latin or french, depending on the school. I was wondering 1) if anyone had any recommendations for or against these and 2) how hard A-levels are (I know they're difficult) in comparison to GCSEs? E.g. are the twice as hard? Thank you
french becomes far more analytical and focuses on topics that aren't the self. for essays in french, I'd consider the standard to be far above gcse but easier and more descriptive than the english lit gcse essays, just in french. speaking is definitely harder in that you have to be able to discuss wider range of topics with different insights needing more vocabulary, but you also may find at least by the end of the course that you don't have enough time to say what you want to say. the IRP is also a big step up from the presentation at gcse (if your board does one) in that you need to do far more research about the topic to get good marks. grammatically a lot more is expected of you but i personally didn't find the atep up in that regard very hard as you cover a lot of the main atuff by gcse end, with the only main difference being more focus on subjunctive and how to work relative clauses as well as a couple of niche tenses. but as i said if you do enough grammar practice in gcse the stepup isnt crazy. in french i definitely didn't do as well as i thought i was going to going into the a level but i found it quite easy to adapt to the greater complexity expected of you
Reply 7
Original post
by VaBook7I'm planning on taking 4 of maths, further maths, geography, economics, latin or french, depending on the school. I was wondering 1) if anyone had any recommendations for or against these and 2) how hard A-levels are (I know they're difficult) in comparison to GCSEs? E.g. are the twice as hard? Thank you
The step up for Maths and FMaths is fine if your school has taught the harder GCSE topics thoroughly.
We set prep work for the summer to keep algebra skills going and there's these:
https://www.pearson.com/en-gb/schools/subject-resources/mathematics/unrivalled-support/support-from-pearson/gcse-maths-transition-to-a-level.html
What degree are you thinking of? You'll have a wider choice of unis if you want to study Economics or something Maths related if you have FMaths.
Reply 8
VaBook7
OP
11
Thank you for the help everyone!! 🙂 I'm definitely doing geography and maths. I'd like to do a degree in stats/finance which is why I thought taking further maths was a good move (I'm predicted a 9 in maths and fm at gcse) but that's why I'm taking four subjects in case I decide to drop it. I've done a bit more research into french and that doesn't seem like such a good option anymore, so I either have latin or econ as my last A-level - I'm predicted a 9 in latin and I think it gives a bit of variety, but I know econ is probably better suited to the degree I'd like to do (however I've not done it at gcse so that probably puts me at a disadvantage) so not quite sure what to pick for that.
Reply 9
Original post
by Geo Lover 7Did you do Eduqas for Geography as Eduqas is the English version of WJEC because I did Eduqas B for GCSE Geography.
ah I did the welsh one I think lol it was a bit weird bc there was no resources online at all but the content was pretty similar to other exam boards
Reply 10
Original post
by VaBook7Thank you for the help everyone!! 🙂 I'm definitely doing geography and maths. I'd like to do a degree in stats/finance which is why I thought taking further maths was a good move (I'm predicted a 9 in maths and fm at gcse) but that's why I'm taking four subjects in case I decide to drop it. I've done a bit more research into french and that doesn't seem like such a good option anymore, so I either have latin or econ as my last A-level - I'm predicted a 9 in latin and I think it gives a bit of variety, but I know econ is probably better suited to the degree I'd like to do (however I've not done it at gcse so that probably puts me at a disadvantage) so not quite sure what to pick for that.
would defo recommend doing Econ with geography as there is lots of overlap!
Reply 11
Original post
by VaBook7I'm planning on taking 4 of maths, further maths, geography, economics, latin or french, depending on the school. I was wondering 1) if anyone had any recommendations for or against these and 2) how hard A-levels are (I know they're difficult) in comparison to GCSEs? E.g. are the twice as hard? Thank you
Hi there,
so I did A-level Biology, Chemistry and English Literature, which are of course different to the ones you want to take.
However, regardless of your A-Level choices, the step up from GCSE to A-level is quite big. But, with the correct support, it can be a smooth transition. You essentially go into a lot more detail in the topics you were taught at GCSE. I susppect that for latin, the vocab list will be more in depth. I have friends that did russian and french, and you will be required to read some literature (this was back in 2020, may have changed now!).
Kind regards, Jenifer (Kingston rep)
Reply 12
My wife works as a careers advisor in multiple schools helping kids choose study and training options. She says that although schools usually require a minimum grade 8 Maths GCSE to proceed to do Further Maths, a 9 would be a better indicator that you could cope with the step up.
FM is renowned as one of the hardest A levels, if not the hardest.
On a side note, if you do FM, you've an excellent chance of getting an A* in Maths. Around 50-60% of students who get A* in Maths also took FM.
FM is renowned as one of the hardest A levels, if not the hardest.
On a side note, if you do FM, you've an excellent chance of getting an A* in Maths. Around 50-60% of students who get A* in Maths also took FM.
Reply 13
Original post
by VaBook7I'm planning on taking 4 of maths, further maths, geography, economics, latin or french, depending on the school. I was wondering 1) if anyone had any recommendations for or against these and 2) how hard A-levels are (I know they're difficult) in comparison to GCSEs? E.g. are the twice as hard? Thank you
If you do further maths at GCSE then you'll find the first year of a level maths easy as it is basically just GCSE further maths . Its a bit more of a step up once you get to Y13, but manageable as long as you're willing to put the work in
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