lol.
I can't do any sciences due to not doing GCSE Sciences, Maths well.. it's just not happening. I am just so poor that doing it at A Level would be suicide.
Choosing A Levels
- Thread starter Chives
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Soldato
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Do A level Maths and Science. Then something gucci.
The doors are always open then
The doors are always open then
Man of Honour
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My final list of subject at the moment is :
Sociology
Geography/English Language (Subject to teacher feedback)
History
British Government & Politics
Thoughts please.
Is this the total list of subjects you can do? Excluding those that are impossible due to not taking the precursor at GCSE (such as the sciences*) or is this just a list of the ones you are interested in? Also how many A-Levels do you need/want to do? Apologies if you've already explained it but it isn't totally clear to me from a skim through.
*nb with some subjects it's not the impossibility you may think, I didn't do accountancy at Standard Grade but I was allowed to do a Higher in it. Oddly enough it's my job for the moment but that was never a conscious plan.
Soldato
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Completely wrong, I'm afraid.
If his aim were to study PPE at Oxford or another university offering the course (York, Warwick, etc.), he would be much better off taking Maths and History — the two subjects recommended, albeit not required, by Oxford for the course — and not Economics. As an A Level, Economics is regarded by universities as a 'soft' subject; it's new, does not provide the transferable skills that Maths and History do, and if your aim is to study Economics at degree level, it's entirely redundant.
Chives, my advice to you is to take Maths and History first and foremost. Get a tutor, work your socks off if needs be; you will not regret it once you get a good grade in Maths, and anyone can get good grades at A Level if they put the work in, regardless of the subject
Associate
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I'm also going to start my A levels next year and got told about this: http://russellgroup.org/Informed Choices final.pdf Basically a guide to what subjects are considered the "best" by the top universities. If you look for the type of course you might want to do at University you can see what they suggest and that might help.
They are the ones that I'm interested in, you can do as 1 to 4 A levels, I am going to take 4
Thought the options form may be of interest to you guys to.
Man of Honour
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They are the ones that I'm interested in, you can do as 1 to 4 A levels, I am going to take 4
Thought the options form may be of interest to you guys to.
Ok then, I'd take English Language (possibly the & Literature option) and History as the definites. None of the rest are particularly inspiring for me as you've excluded Maths & any sciences. Business Studies or another language may be reasonable options but I don't know if you can take them based on previous choices.
I'm not sure that sociology works well as a subject at this level but it may do as I don't know enough about what is taught in detail here and equally the same for politics but if you've got a couple of solid subjects that are reasonably respected it may be fine for you just to pick ones you want.
Deleted member 11679
Deleted member 11679
Having taught this course for the last three years both at AS and A-level I can confidently say this is not the case at all. The underpinning problem solving skills taught in mathematics are essential to doing well in Computing. The work done outside of lessons is key to developing into a good programmer. In a typical allocation of lessons only the basics can be taught.
If you are a targeting a D or E grade then yes, rudimentary Maths and no work in your own time is fine. However for anything more you need to have an understanding of Mathematics at a higher level plus the work ethic to do things in your own time.
I am not targeting D or E, I am predicted B going for A.
I do program quite a bit outside Lesson time and I do quite a bit of work as well.
You definitely need to do work outside of class but we have already finished the syllabus, that leaves us 3 months just for revision. I revised for each End Of chapter test and are averaged on a high b.
So far it has just been Basic programming and just a whole lot of definitions to learn. I know that if you go higher to computer science you will need a very good understanding of maths, but computing is just the same as many other word based subjects such as geography where it is a matter of just listing points.
F452 Certainly does require a bit of Maths certainly not that advanced, if you call comparing numbers and calculating outputs from algorithms advanced maths you must not have taken it to a high level.
Just look at electronics, 90% of the questions are applied Maths same with physics.
Computing != Computer science, sorry but I cannot see how anything > GCSE is needed certainly for As.
EDIT: The subject is not about becoming a good programmer, it is about ticking boxes for the exam marker. If you tell me that all the students are aiming to become programmers you should not be teaching. I am certainly most likely not going to take programming to a higher level, Certainly not as a degree.
Most of the students should see Subjects as non vocational subjects, they are there to get you into university. Allocating your time to one subject is not a good idea and neither is expecting all your students to become programmers.
You can either spend your whole time working on becoming a good programmer or working on the harder subjects such as sciences to get you into a good university, I would rather take the last option.
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History and geography are both solid subjects - I guess if you're into politics and think you might study it later at uni then you might as well get a head start now.... perhaps change sociology to a economics?
Yes indeed, English A level, don't bother with that one,
being able to communicate clearly in written form is the most utterly pointless skill you will ever acquire.
Just clench your fists and bash the keyboard randomly, then rely on the extreme patience of others to work out what the hell you are on about.
I'm choosing my A levels fairly soon was wondering how hard I would find, and how good these are: Maths, Physics, computing and chemistry. May end up even doing further maths instead of computing. Are these too much work do you reckon? I'm mainly on A*'s at the moment in GCSE. I've also been offered a chance to do an extended project (5000 word essay and a presentation etc) by the college I want to go to. Would that be a waste of time or actually worth doing. You get some UCAS points iirc. Any recommendations? I'm thinking about either comp-sci or mechanical or some other form of engineering at uni, providing I get there.
I don't want to pick stuff that will be too difficult for me, hence why I will more than likely avoid further maths.How hard are chem and phys?
totally my opinion & I'm about 12 years out of date...
If I were you I'd drop 'computing' and do further maths - might be harder in terms of the level of difficulty but would likely require less of your time. Not much in the way of project work/course work and not much to revise either - you either understand it or you don't. Further maths will be of much more use to you later at uni tbh... If you're an A* student then go for it!
IMO Physics doesn't require much time either - slightly more than maths and a bit of study required but it is again mostly about whether you get it or not - there isn't really much material to learn - tis essentially applied maths with a bit of lab work and learning a bit about the universe etc.... and a lot of the maths you'll also be covering in your actual maths A-level (mechanics) modules too.
So that's basically 3 A-levels that all overlap/complement each other very well and are all essentially 'maths'
Chemistry does require a bit of time reading/studying and isn't necessarily an easy choice but definitely a very solid A-level to have
Basically I reckon by dropping computing and doing further maths you'll have more time for the studying required for Chemistry - rather than wasting time trying to complete some nonsense project for a subject that is a waste of time to begin with.
Again - also just my opinion - avoid computer science unless you get into a top uni - if you really really want to do the subject then I'd strongly recommend a dual honors combining it with maths.
Only issue with that is I would have to travel to another school, will have to find about the specific arrangement with that.
Soldato
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I'm choosing my A levels fairly soon was wondering how hard I would find, and how good these are: Maths, Physics, computing and chemistry. May end up even doing further maths instead of computing. Are these too much work do you reckon? I'm mainly on A*'s at the moment in GCSE. I've also been offered a chance to do an extended project (5000 word essay and a presentation etc) by the college I want to go to. Would that be a waste of time or actually worth doing. You get some UCAS points iirc. Any recommendations? I'm thinking about either comp-sci or mechanical or some other form of engineering at uni, providing I get there.
I don't want to pick stuff that will be too difficult for me, hence why I will more than likely avoid further maths.
I'm currently in Year 12 having taken maths, further maths, physics, chemistry and biology, and I'm finding chemistry and biology much harder than further maths. Physics is primarily maths and remembering basic concepts, the rest can be done with a bit of common sense. Chemistry does require a fair bit of maths, but it's all easy stuff, however there is a lot more factual information to remember.
I would highly recommend taking further maths though, not only because I've found it my most enjoyable and interesting subject, and I absolutely love it, but because it'll help you immensely with normal maths. In our maths mock, the four of us taking further maths got A's, while the rest of the class got U's, there was nobody that was in between. It's hard to ascertain whether that is simply due to us being a lot better at maths generally or because we took further maths, but regardless the two subjects do tie in a lot, and I'd say that taking physics, maths and further maths together is more like taking 2 subjects than 3.
It'd be good to know how good your maths is though before taking further maths, it's an enormous step up over GCSE, and unless you completely breezed maths with guaranteed A*'s, I don't think I could recommend it. Those same people that were getting U's in AS maths got A's and A*'s in GCSE, so the step up to further maths is even greater. Look at what modules are involved in your A-level too, our f.maths consists of Decision 1 and 2, and Further Pure 1. If your working with algebra and ability to look beyond literal numbers and more at concepts isn't top notch, the pure part is probably what you'd struggle with. Decision 1 is just glorified dot-to-dots, number sorting and remembering algorithms, and the decision 2 we're currently learning is simply expanding on that, so if your memory is good that wouldn't be too hard.
As for chemistry, it's my personally most worrisome subject, seeing as how I need an A or A* at A2 to go into medicine, especially at cambridge as I'm hoping. However, so far I seem to be making it. My recent ISA came out with me getting the only A in the class (although that is taking last year's grade boundaries, which are likely to be lower this year), and my mocks have all come out with A's. I get my result of the last exam in march, so I'm praying that's an A too
In terms of difficulty, we're learning a new topic every lesson or two, compared to every week at GCSE, which certainly makes the amount to remember more, but it isn't that much more difficult. You need to have a good grasp of the basic concepts behind *why* molecules and atoms act the way they do - e.g. bonding, how phase changes are different at different areas of the periodic table, ionisation, how acidity and alkalinity actually work, etc. It also helps to have some common sense when it comes to rearranging equations, and calculating moles. Obviously a 1mol/dm^3 solution isn't going to give you 0.001 moles when you have 1000cm^3, which from what I've observed, seems to be the main kind of error that people make.Physics - easier than chemistry, at least personally. As said earlier, it's more maths based than chemistry, and the majority of it revolves around rearranging equations and again, common sense. There is a bit of information to be remembered, but most of it you can still figure out from common sense. The sub atomic particles for example. The exam papers will usually ask you to complete a reaction, which I personally found impossible to remember simply from knowing all the reactions. Instead, I thought it was easier to deduce the values of strangeness, baryon number, etc from common sense, and then work out the reaction by knowing that they all have to be observed. My memory is awful, so physics is certainly more "open" to learn and recall how suits you best, rather than just drilling information into your head like biology and chemistry.
Yes indeed, English A level, don't bother with that one,
being able to communicate clearly in written form is the most utterly pointless skill you will ever acquire.
Just clench your fists and bash the keyboard randomly, then rely on the extreme patience of others to work out what the hell you are on about.
Laughed a bit too much at that.
Hmm, Cardiff Uni is in the Russell group and within commuting distance. Looks like I'll be headed there in the future..
My decision on the English A-Level will be decided after further discussion with my teacher, also Geography is in question due to my poor attendance in Year 10, my teacher said she will have to consult head of department on the matter. Will update this thread when I know more, cheers for the advice guys very helpful.
I am not, just would be good if I could go there as I could save a lot of money.
How are you managing to do GCSEs without science?
If I had the choice now I wouldn't change what I did;
Maths
Further Maths
Physics (but try hard)
Geography
Targetting energy industry work.
I did Maths, Further Maths, Computing, Geography, Physics, got BCAA*C
After a jan retake it should be ACAA*C. (FM was taken entirely in 1 year, I got a high B in AS and a crap grade in A2, if it was over the full 2 years I reckon a high B would've been achievable)
Hoping to be studying geosciences at Bristol, but can go to Reading, Leeds, UEA if the offer doesn't come through
If I had the choice now I wouldn't change what I did;
Maths
Further Maths
Physics (but try hard)
Geography
Targetting energy industry work.
I did Maths, Further Maths, Computing, Geography, Physics, got BCAA*C
After a jan retake it should be ACAA*C. (FM was taken entirely in 1 year, I got a high B in AS and a crap grade in A2, if it was over the full 2 years I reckon a high B would've been achievable)
Hoping to be studying geosciences at Bristol, but can go to Reading, Leeds, UEA if the offer doesn't come through
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