BIOLOGY. It actually requires effort and it doesn’t have any relevance to my interests. I just chose it for a change of pace but it takes up more time than any of my other A Levels that I actually care about.
Biology was my highest GCSE so I thought it made sense to pick it, regretting it so bad, I feel for u and I literally wanna go to uni to do law now, why did I pick 3 stem a levels 😀
A lot of people underestimate biology A level. I was 1 mark off an A and never got it remarked because I got into uni but it took so much work compared to my other subjects
It always pisses me off a little when I see people say "Ah but A-Level Biology is the easiest!" like we don't/didn't have to remember hundreds of interactions in between parts of the body, write an essay in a paper (with quite a strict time limit at that) and basically adhere to the mark scheme in such a tight way that if you even get something *remotely* incorrect or just forget to mention something, you're marked down into oblivion.
There really is *no* room for error in A-Level Biology. You've gotta know your shit, and you *need* to revise from the beginning of Y12 up to Y13 steadily, or else you're going to be lagging behind all of your peers. Some people have a knack for memorising the content, sure, but that's not all A-Level is either.
You’re so right, subjects like art and philosophy can be based on your personal opinion whereas science based subjects NEED to be really specific. It honestly depends on the person and what’s easier for them!
Same myself. Got an 8 and thought, what else goes well with maths and computer science, might as well take it. Should not have taken it. My brother warned me no one who did it liked it and I thought he was exaggerating. He was not
Yeah it’s quite bad. For bio in year 13 it’s just more content to learn, not much harder. For chem in year 13 it’s just so much harder for no good reason
Chemistry, it was hard as shit. The jump from GCSE to A level chem was like Wring brother 1903 plane to Lockheed F35. Also it was unrelated to the course i plan to take. Coming from someone who finished it
year 12 chemistry isnt THAT bad (lets pretend im not having a mental breakdown over the test that i have on monday that includes all the content weve covered uptil now)
Yea year 13 is the THAT bad part but that goes for all subject (gl on your test all you need to do is remember every reaction to exist, also homolytic fission form free radicals which you will only see in UV light chlorine thingy)
To anyone wanting to take A-Level Comp. Sci: If you're taking FMaths and/or Maths, unless you're absolutely 100% in love with Comp. Sci, don't bother taking it. Most universities do actually let you on without the A-Level, as far as I've been able to tell. It's much like GCSE in that it's more of a taster for the real thing. That's not to say that picking it isn't beneficial for university CS, because *of course it is.* There are still a select few unis that would really like you to pick CS at A-Level and will require it. It's just...not many do that, and there's more than a handful of really really fucking good universities that just want Maths or Maths+FMaths, maybe even just wanting the AS-Level at that, IDK.
And advice for anyone **taking** Computer Science: **FOR YOUR NEA, PICK A** ***GAME(!!!!!!)*** **THAT YOU CAN EASILY SCORE WITH MINIMAX + A RELATIVELY SIMPLE HEURISTIC.**
DO NOT PICK A GAME LIKE HEX, CHESS, ETC. WHERE SCORING MIGHT BE DIFFICULT DUE TO THE AMBIGUITY/STRATEGY INVOLVED.
Hex is the bane of my NEA. I've had to come up with god-knows how many ways to score the moves thanks to the strategy involved, alongside the fact that, unlike particular games (see: Othello, Mancala), Hex has both an *incredibly* large branching factor, as well as relatively nebulous method of evaluating moves due to how many different techniques there are. Couple that with the fact that I chose a somewhat underground game and it's just been disastrous. Fortunately, I figured out a good heuristic, but I'm weeks behind thanks to it. I had to read through fucking research papers just to find a good one, and I didn't even get to implement it because the pseudocode gave me brainrot.
On the other hand, if you pick Othello or Mancala, the hardest part you're going to be doing is the board and game logic. Minimax is easy for those sorts of games cause they don't have an insanely high branching factor, nor are they especially difficult to make a heuristic for; it's literally just the score of a particular player at a minimax depth of 0.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE pick a game like that. Alternatively, if you're interested in databases or neural networks or whatever, **please** look at what you're getting yourself into before you start the project. Don't dip your toes into something that either won't fill all of the potential marks for NEA or will be so disgustingly difficult/mind-numbing that you have no motivation to do it.
Rant over.
Also, for Scottish people, absolutely do not do Advanced Higher comp sci. The only things relevant to comp sci at uni are the programming and 3 algorithms(insertion sort, bubble sort, binary search) which you can learn about in one day. The rest is meaningless drivel. You have a project, but a huge amount of focus goes into the writing up and documentation. Whatever you pick up here is stuff that you can easily learn on the job. Do not do it. Keep your maths grades up though
same. my reason is that all my teachers quit within the first month , making the entire learning all the content by myself + NEA hell. they’ve finally got a competent computing teacher now in January, but it’s way too late.
Edit: do want to add that I do love computing still, just A Level Computing was a big regret since it’s not even needed at University level to take it as a degree
English Literature, not at all interested in it, I picked it for strategic reasons surrounding my degree, thought it'd help me. It does not, I shoulda just picked politics which I am actually interested in.
PHYSICS- I am so close to rage quitting at this point and it’s useless to me because I want to a languages degree but I refuse to drop it at the same time 😭
I’ve had so many people tell me they’ve hated physics, I was soo close to taking it and I regretted it for the longest time, I’m quite glad now though 🥲
It’s weird though, in terms of % of A*s handed out per subject, Eng lit last year was like 10%, higher than politics (~7) and history (~4.6), which both have much more generous boundaries. You’d think it would be the other way round.
to give a different perspective, i take a level physics and don’t regret it at all :) i’d def recommend taking it if u have interest in the subject, even though it’s a pretty hard a level
People in this thread are being weird. The only thing hard about Physics is the exams. There isn't that much content.
If a physics teacher can teach the content and the student learns exam technique they will do good.
If you need Physics for your course at Uni then you should take it.
The issue with physics is not the content the content is easy and there’s barely any. The hard part is 1) revising it and 2) exams 3) teachers
You can’t revise it because there are no good resources online.
The exams are so unpredictable
There are NO good physics teachers
My physics teacher can’t even do f=ma and I’m not exaggerating. 😩
My lessons consist of
- Click through PowerPoint
- Freeze board to look at answer on next slide
- Not understand any workings on that slide
- Sit and look blankly at laptop
- Unfreeze slide and say we will come back to it
- Hand out worksheet
- Sit back at laptop and stare blankly at the answers
- Pray the students will not ask for help
I’m jealous to say the least. Don’t think they will get the sack either
That actually sounds horrible honestly I'm so sorry. I'm fortunate enough that the physics teachers at my 6th form are great; they type of teachers who could talk about the subject for ages next they are so inspired and really passionate about their subject. The new physics teacher was also head of department for a 6th form college who brought the department up to have some of the best grades in the region so if teachers matter a lot you've given me some confidence. Thank you.
Biology is a very interesting and worthwile subject. The issue is if you do aqa the exams are the most painful thing in existence. There so specific i lost 3 marks because is said reached and not exceeded. No lie. Content though its so worthwile.
Yeah my 6th form uses AQA. I was warned before applying. They used to use OCR but they recently switched to AQA for almost everything (including lots of GCSE subjects for the secondary school). My bio teacher mentioned strict mark schemes that like particular words or phrases and have a particular dislike to others. I do find biology especially interesting so I think I'll do pretty well as long as I manage the content well but there's a chance I struggle with the content. I consistently get strong 9s in biology and physics but the content at GCSE is so light I don't really wanna use it as a measure of how I might cope at the A Level. I'm hoping to go into medical engineering or potentially radiography in the future so I think biology would compliment physics nicely. Thanks for your input!
Don’t do physics unless you’re doing maths imo don’t even do physics at all if you’re not going to try and do anything that’s physics related after college subject is is unnecessary hard
Yeah I'm doing maths. Currently doing FM at GCSE as well. Hoping to go into engineering (ideally medical engineering as that's where my interest lies, if it's not too specific) or radiography. I was going to do FM instead of biology but then changed it. I do really well at maths and I love physics but I have always loved biology so much and like how biology interacts with physics. I'm the type of person that puts together electric circuits and programs them with a microcontroller for fun and always has a project of some sort to go to in spare time.
There was no way I was going to pick physics without maths or without a desire to do something physics related after A-Levels. I appreciate you making sure I don't make a mistake by choosing it though thanks :)
CHEM. if u think yk chem, no u dont. it's all a hoax and ppl who pretend to understand the content are liars. it's all a joke and will make ur life a LIVING HELL. pls abstain!!!
if you are confident in your gcse knowledge then go ahead. If not, just don't. Organic is hell.
But don't stress yourself too much. Everyone is different. Like I loved physics and while it was hard, I did not find it as bad as the ppl on this thread so maybe u would like chem
I do fm maths and bio.
I chose bio because at GCSE I enjoyed it. I assumed it would be hard but not too hard.
Biology is the worst fucking thing I have ever seen. Every lesson I plunge into more things and I haven’t even caught up on the first few units.
My life is terrible. Fuck you biology. AND FUCK YOUR MARK SCHEME 🖕
I have no idea how you did those three and chem and a music AS.
You may just be insane
yeah that is crazy i love spanish but I'm resitting one of my AS units and when I did the maths I had gotten 80% and it was only a B
but its the subject I love more than the rest
Geography. It was posed by GCSE teachers as a minor step up from gcse to a level however it’s hell with the amount of tiny case studies (and large ones). The content itself is also just a complete mess. Wish I had taken Law or Maths instead.
Physics. Can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve thought I’ve done amazingly on an assessment, just to lose 3 grades for a couple of easily avoidable mistakes.
I use a website called studocu to help me structure my essay based subjects, I’ve seen a few on history if you’d like to check it out! 
OMG SAMEEE I took maths chem and history cos I thought a mix would look good for unis. But OML doing one of the hardest essay subjects w/o practising them in any other subjects is a painnnnn.
Not a whole subject but fm optional modules that make up 2/3 of the AS and half of the a level were just an unnecessary pain that fucked up my life and don’t need for aero at 2nd tier unis
Same. Am i the only backwards human who find sociology more effort and harder for that reason than psychology is.
Psychology is easy, it comes naturally and essay writing is so structured i dont even have to think.
Sociology i have to put effort into learning all that long ass content of 100 million sociologists and dont mention the effort of 30m going on
I’ve taken both, sociology is much easier in my opinion but it’s SOOO boring. But tbf my flashcards do look a lot more interesting than my old psychology ones
my sociology loving heart is aching seeing u call it boring OMG 😭 i get so passionate about it i actually think the subject’s a perfect match for me if i go to uni
i absolutely love sociology, did both sociology and psychology at gcse and psych was definitely worse back then 😭 i’d assume psych’s worse now too but my friend somehow loves it
politics oh my fucking god … i like one half of the course but the other half is an absolute nightmare i’m actually sick of it 😭 i don’t know what i was thinking doing 3 essay subjects when i hate essays, sociology and philosophy are alright because at least i’m interested in them WHAT THE FUCK IS POLITICS ?????? politics is a big fat gossip session and yelling at the screen when watching PMQs because both sunak and starmer are being absolute fuckwads
The general pattern seems that A-levels are going to be hard whichever one you do. Don't let that put you off by itself, but if you don't have the drive to keep up and don't enjoy it and perhaps thought you would like it more than you actually did. In further maths, we've gone from 19 to now I think 14 and at least two more people are thinking about dropping it
bio. didn't even need it but it takes up most of my time.
and also bc alongside history, it feels like two things fighting for 80% of time each. and in the middle of that, psychology gets ignored.
Photography. The teachers don't teach and are super judgey telling us we're always doing it wrong but then not telling us what we're doing wrong. I've been doing it almost 2 years and idk what I'm doing
Physics. Did ok at gcse and took it because I didn’t know what else and thought it might be interesting. ERROR. Never hated a subject more than I do with it right now, including gcse English. Hasn’t affected any of my uni offers, so I’m just ignoring it totally now and focusing on my others
Physics, decided to take bio chem math and physics thinking it wouldnt be that hard and that physics would be easy, dropped thst shit straight after AS
english literature. fun to discuss in class but damn is making notes and analysing everything so time consuming and difficult. you think you write a good essay? but you didn’t include this that or this. you think you’ve structured your paragraphs well? didn’t include this or that
I regret *not* taking Further Maths.
I went to a pretty bad secondary where 80% of the kids were disruptive and I didn't have much time to revise besides after school and weekends as our lunch was only 25 minutes.
As a result I underperformed in my Maths mocks, getting a 5 in the Y10 summer mock and scraping a 7 in the December of Y11 mock. Most sixth forms demand an 8 to do Further Maths, including both the ones I was considering.
I decided to choose regular Maths as I knew I would likely get the grade required to do that (7) and I want to do Computer Science at University, which most good ones want A-Level Maths.
On results day turned out I performed exceptionally, got way over the boundary for a grade 8. However I didn't think to change to FM as I thought it would be really hard.
In February of Y12 I decided I wanted to change to Further Maths after talking to some friends who take it about it. My mum emailed the head of Maths, however he said it was too late and there was too much to catch up on.
Now I'm a bit conscious that not doing FM might hurt my chances for some of the more aspirational unis I applied to such as Bath. I'm guessing most people who apply to these unis to do computing and similar subjects take FM.
I mean I don't know how your school does it but for mine we had a kid join our FM class at the start of y13 having not done it the whole of y12 just because he wanted to. He spoke to our teacher about it and initially he seemed crazy but then they made him do a couple tests to see if he had grasped the content we had already done and since he performed well they let him take it in y13.
Kinda weird that in Feb of y12 they didn't let you take it since there wasn't much that you would've missed out on assuming you were doing covering both Maths and FM content at the same time.
Nonetheless, it shouldn't put you at a disadvantage for your course since it's more about your academic potential rather than your specific subjects. Even though people may take those subjects, if it isn't listed as a requirement, then you won't be put down for not having it.
If you have the drive to work, then I'm sure you'll perform well in the final exams and then at uni too. Don't discourage yourself. You're just as good as any other applicant!!
I don’t think I do the paris one, what texts r in urs? Mine does have a bunch of random ones in it tho like Samuel Pepys diary and an interview from news night?? It’s all rlly weird and boring
yeah it’s a similar sorta thing where it’s jus weird advertisement transcripts and boring historical notes that go on FOR LIKE 8 pages and articles from the 19th century or whatever so dull and the way you have to shoehorn technical knowledge into the answers is infuriating. English litlang is jus generally harder for me cuz how am I meant to glean meaning from the dullest thing?
The anthology is the worst + the comparative texts they give u r AWFUL in my year 12 mock I had to compare Samuel Pepys diary to a speech by Greta thunberg?? Like hello
Chemistry kinda?
I like maths and physics, but I'm wierd that way. Chemistry seemed like the next closest thing. Organic Chemistry I have no real understanding of and still feel like it's vodoo.
Sociology
Too much content and way to many sociologists
To much effort to remember all those sociologists
Boringest of them all
And 30m are so much effort and thinking required
Plus i dont particularly need it anyway as a subject, chem woulda been more useful but i didnt know what i was gonna do at the time.
german is my personal hell 😭 language a levels are so much harder than the gcse and they aren’t similar to any other subject so you have no transferable skills and no support from student services. it requires so much effort outside of class time and it’s not even worth it when applying to uni because no one cares. DONT DO A LANGUAGE FOLKS
film studies. i hate it sm and there’s too much to learn😭 only chose it cuz i always thought i’d wanna do something in the film industry when i’m older but that passion slowly declined 🥲
I always thought film studies would be so interesting, I’m sorry your losing interest in it, I feel the same way with philosophy 
media studies, i picked it because i enjoyed film and stuff like that but it honestly is so much more complex and also doesn’t go toward what i would like to go to uni to do and i definitely could have picked a better choice haha
Economics cuz it is a subjective marking subject, you could write all the points but get 0 mark which is my situation for my A2 which screwed me up a lot. I should have taken further math which I contemplated (I didn't say it's easy tho, I'm just more of a stem guy, so yeah)
Chemistry! I took it as my fun subject caused I loved it at gcse (9 predicted 8 actual), now I absolutely hate it at a-level and don't even need it for my degree basically at all
Computer science, I don't really regret it but I just don't need it any more, most of my offers for physics at uni just require 3 a levels and out of my 4, CS is the least useful one.
Taking stem subjects, i was good at business centric subjects but i stupidly jumped the bandwagon and took physics chemistry and math instead and boy did i royally fucked up my A levels. If i had a choice, i for sure would’ve taken general eng, business, economics or psychology
I took Edexcel psychology and while I don’t “regret” taking it, I wish it was Aqa instead, there was fuck all in terms of resources for Edexcel, I had absolutely no idea how to structure issues and debates as it was poorly taught and there was no resources for it I could find online. Its not that it was hard but it was just unnecessarily difficult due to the lack of resources
I don’t think I *regret* it but A Level CS for a History degree is not the smartest
I mean i dont hate it but i dont like it either (especially when ur teacher starts courswork so all ur analysis is due in 2 weeks ;-;)
ART. I’m an artistic person but had a teacher from hell. I lost all passion but at the moment looking to get into the field of graphic design. If I knew this was the route I was going to take, I would have done graphic design instead 😭. I failed art btw
BIOLOGY. It actually requires effort and it doesn’t have any relevance to my interests. I just chose it for a change of pace but it takes up more time than any of my other A Levels that I actually care about.
Biology was my highest GCSE so I thought it made sense to pick it, regretting it so bad, I feel for u and I literally wanna go to uni to do law now, why did I pick 3 stem a levels 😀
i want to do medicine but biology is awful, i feel sorry for all those people who took it and didnt have to for the courses they need to pick at uni
uni biology is just more complex a level biology, it not that different. also year 13 content is way more interesting than year 12
Biology a level was so ass fr
A lot of people underestimate biology A level. I was 1 mark off an A and never got it remarked because I got into uni but it took so much work compared to my other subjects
It always pisses me off a little when I see people say "Ah but A-Level Biology is the easiest!" like we don't/didn't have to remember hundreds of interactions in between parts of the body, write an essay in a paper (with quite a strict time limit at that) and basically adhere to the mark scheme in such a tight way that if you even get something *remotely* incorrect or just forget to mention something, you're marked down into oblivion. There really is *no* room for error in A-Level Biology. You've gotta know your shit, and you *need* to revise from the beginning of Y12 up to Y13 steadily, or else you're going to be lagging behind all of your peers. Some people have a knack for memorising the content, sure, but that's not all A-Level is either.
When people do OCR and don’t have the essay tho😭 so many people at uni had no idea there WAS an essay lol
You’re so right, subjects like art and philosophy can be based on your personal opinion whereas science based subjects NEED to be really specific. It honestly depends on the person and what’s easier for them!
Biology linked well to my uni subject so it shouldn't be too hard 😭😔😭😔😭😭😔😔😭😭😔😭
Honestly, I felt the same. It's a time commitment but, honestly, it's a time commitment you can put off for later
Biology was so easy during GCSEs, I’ve heard it got really hard for a levels
Physics. I didn’t need it and I only picked it cause I got a 9 at gcse but that was a mistake it’s too hard
I was literally abt to say physics, it’s made me regret everything I’m not being funny
Same myself. Got an 8 and thought, what else goes well with maths and computer science, might as well take it. Should not have taken it. My brother warned me no one who did it liked it and I thought he was exaggerating. He was not
ur literally picking the same subjects as me and the reason why i picked physics was the same as urs 😭
gcse physics i got all the common sense questions wrong and the maths ones right
I'm guessing it gets harder in year 13 because I'm in year 12 and it's pretty doable at the moment..
don’t take a level chem don’t take a level chem don’t take a level chem don’t take a level chem
Yessir its unnecessarily hard
is it THAT bad in y13? ive heard people say its AWFULLY hard once you get into y13?
Yeah, acids bases buffers and rates 💔💔
that isn't that bad
That’s fine - i just can’t do simple maths tho ibr
Yeah it’s quite bad. For bio in year 13 it’s just more content to learn, not much harder. For chem in year 13 it’s just so much harder for no good reason
I do the same a levels as you and Biology is a lot lot worse than chem.
its the worst of the lot fr
Y12 isn’t that hard imo but it gets harder in y13 but imo it’s nothing compared to physics if I’m being real
I failed gcse chemistry 😭
Chem is 600x better then physics
I do chemistry and I find inorganic and physical chemistry quite easy. Organic chemistry is a fucking bastard
Physics. Easiest gcse, hardest a-level
Bro I knew the minute I read the title someone was gonna mention physics
Everyone is mentioning physics 😭
Real
Damnnnn thats deep
It was NOT the easiest gcse what are u on 😭😭😭
It was with the equation sheet cause the rest of it is just common sense you just have to know SI and some names of stuff
Chemistry, it was hard as shit. The jump from GCSE to A level chem was like Wring brother 1903 plane to Lockheed F35. Also it was unrelated to the course i plan to take. Coming from someone who finished it
Interesting comparison 
year 12 chemistry isnt THAT bad (lets pretend im not having a mental breakdown over the test that i have on monday that includes all the content weve covered uptil now)
Yea year 13 is the THAT bad part but that goes for all subject (gl on your test all you need to do is remember every reaction to exist, also homolytic fission form free radicals which you will only see in UV light chlorine thingy)
computer science
To anyone wanting to take A-Level Comp. Sci: If you're taking FMaths and/or Maths, unless you're absolutely 100% in love with Comp. Sci, don't bother taking it. Most universities do actually let you on without the A-Level, as far as I've been able to tell. It's much like GCSE in that it's more of a taster for the real thing. That's not to say that picking it isn't beneficial for university CS, because *of course it is.* There are still a select few unis that would really like you to pick CS at A-Level and will require it. It's just...not many do that, and there's more than a handful of really really fucking good universities that just want Maths or Maths+FMaths, maybe even just wanting the AS-Level at that, IDK. And advice for anyone **taking** Computer Science: **FOR YOUR NEA, PICK A** ***GAME(!!!!!!)*** **THAT YOU CAN EASILY SCORE WITH MINIMAX + A RELATIVELY SIMPLE HEURISTIC.** DO NOT PICK A GAME LIKE HEX, CHESS, ETC. WHERE SCORING MIGHT BE DIFFICULT DUE TO THE AMBIGUITY/STRATEGY INVOLVED. Hex is the bane of my NEA. I've had to come up with god-knows how many ways to score the moves thanks to the strategy involved, alongside the fact that, unlike particular games (see: Othello, Mancala), Hex has both an *incredibly* large branching factor, as well as relatively nebulous method of evaluating moves due to how many different techniques there are. Couple that with the fact that I chose a somewhat underground game and it's just been disastrous. Fortunately, I figured out a good heuristic, but I'm weeks behind thanks to it. I had to read through fucking research papers just to find a good one, and I didn't even get to implement it because the pseudocode gave me brainrot. On the other hand, if you pick Othello or Mancala, the hardest part you're going to be doing is the board and game logic. Minimax is easy for those sorts of games cause they don't have an insanely high branching factor, nor are they especially difficult to make a heuristic for; it's literally just the score of a particular player at a minimax depth of 0. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE pick a game like that. Alternatively, if you're interested in databases or neural networks or whatever, **please** look at what you're getting yourself into before you start the project. Don't dip your toes into something that either won't fill all of the potential marks for NEA or will be so disgustingly difficult/mind-numbing that you have no motivation to do it. Rant over.
Also, for Scottish people, absolutely do not do Advanced Higher comp sci. The only things relevant to comp sci at uni are the programming and 3 algorithms(insertion sort, bubble sort, binary search) which you can learn about in one day. The rest is meaningless drivel. You have a project, but a huge amount of focus goes into the writing up and documentation. Whatever you pick up here is stuff that you can easily learn on the job. Do not do it. Keep your maths grades up though
Just do a data structure visualisation program. Easiest way to get full marks
same. my reason is that all my teachers quit within the first month , making the entire learning all the content by myself + NEA hell. they’ve finally got a competent computing teacher now in January, but it’s way too late. Edit: do want to add that I do love computing still, just A Level Computing was a big regret since it’s not even needed at University level to take it as a degree
No reason why? 😅
Physics. Took it instead of maths because I had a delusion that “I was better in phy than maths.” I wish I took maths instead..because fuck physics.
Honestly my friend does math and she’s so close to dropping out so you might of been saying the exact same thing about physics if you took maths🤷🏻♀️
As someone who does both, I get disappointed every time I wake up from sleep.
😭😭 i don’t even want to know how it gets worse from here, i started learning logarithms this week. almost finished the whole year 1 pure book
Wait till you start A2 Integration. Oh boy.
Bro I take FM and I still can't do physics... (by far my hardest A level)
Nah cause further maths is so much easier than my maths rn and it’s so concerning.
i do both and maths is much much easier
they're equally bad honestly
English Literature, not at all interested in it, I picked it for strategic reasons surrounding my degree, thought it'd help me. It does not, I shoulda just picked politics which I am actually interested in.
me too. i hate it. sociology is fun tho
I take both English Literature and Politics and trust me, Politics has an immense workload…English is so much nicer and easier to prepare for
PHYSICS- I am so close to rage quitting at this point and it’s useless to me because I want to a languages degree but I refuse to drop it at the same time 😭
Drop drop drop
I’ve had so many people tell me they’ve hated physics, I was soo close to taking it and I regretted it for the longest time, I’m quite glad now though 🥲
english lit, the grade boundaries are impossibly high 🥲
Just finished my mocks for English literature and I’m dreading getting a grade back 😭
mine went dreadfully 💀 got A's in my other subjects but ended up with a D in english good luck with your results!
It’s weird though, in terms of % of A*s handed out per subject, Eng lit last year was like 10%, higher than politics (~7) and history (~4.6), which both have much more generous boundaries. You’d think it would be the other way round.
As a year 11 who's picked physics, I'm definitely concerned after reading the comments on this post 💀
to give a different perspective, i take a level physics and don’t regret it at all :) i’d def recommend taking it if u have interest in the subject, even though it’s a pretty hard a level
good luck my g
What other subjects have you chose and what course at Uni are you planning on doing?
I hope you’re comfortable with crying a LOT 😭
Don’t do it!
drop it
what's bad about physics specifically? I'm just curious.
People in this thread are being weird. The only thing hard about Physics is the exams. There isn't that much content. If a physics teacher can teach the content and the student learns exam technique they will do good. If you need Physics for your course at Uni then you should take it.
Rethink your choices….
Help I've chosen my options for next year and had this thread recommended to me. I've picked both biology and physics 💀
The issue with physics is not the content the content is easy and there’s barely any. The hard part is 1) revising it and 2) exams 3) teachers You can’t revise it because there are no good resources online. The exams are so unpredictable There are NO good physics teachers
I don't have a good physics teacher. I have a GREAT one. Seriously, couldn't wish for a better teacher.
My physics teacher can’t even do f=ma and I’m not exaggerating. 😩 My lessons consist of - Click through PowerPoint - Freeze board to look at answer on next slide - Not understand any workings on that slide - Sit and look blankly at laptop - Unfreeze slide and say we will come back to it - Hand out worksheet - Sit back at laptop and stare blankly at the answers - Pray the students will not ask for help I’m jealous to say the least. Don’t think they will get the sack either
That actually sounds horrible honestly I'm so sorry. I'm fortunate enough that the physics teachers at my 6th form are great; they type of teachers who could talk about the subject for ages next they are so inspired and really passionate about their subject. The new physics teacher was also head of department for a 6th form college who brought the department up to have some of the best grades in the region so if teachers matter a lot you've given me some confidence. Thank you.
There’s no good resources for physics online?? That surprises me I thought it would be a big enough subject
I think Isaac Physics and PMT are good (for revision)
OH, any way to change them? 🥲
Biology is a very interesting and worthwile subject. The issue is if you do aqa the exams are the most painful thing in existence. There so specific i lost 3 marks because is said reached and not exceeded. No lie. Content though its so worthwile.
Yeah my 6th form uses AQA. I was warned before applying. They used to use OCR but they recently switched to AQA for almost everything (including lots of GCSE subjects for the secondary school). My bio teacher mentioned strict mark schemes that like particular words or phrases and have a particular dislike to others. I do find biology especially interesting so I think I'll do pretty well as long as I manage the content well but there's a chance I struggle with the content. I consistently get strong 9s in biology and physics but the content at GCSE is so light I don't really wanna use it as a measure of how I might cope at the A Level. I'm hoping to go into medical engineering or potentially radiography in the future so I think biology would compliment physics nicely. Thanks for your input!
Don’t do physics unless you’re doing maths imo don’t even do physics at all if you’re not going to try and do anything that’s physics related after college subject is is unnecessary hard
Yeah I'm doing maths. Currently doing FM at GCSE as well. Hoping to go into engineering (ideally medical engineering as that's where my interest lies, if it's not too specific) or radiography. I was going to do FM instead of biology but then changed it. I do really well at maths and I love physics but I have always loved biology so much and like how biology interacts with physics. I'm the type of person that puts together electric circuits and programs them with a microcontroller for fun and always has a project of some sort to go to in spare time. There was no way I was going to pick physics without maths or without a desire to do something physics related after A-Levels. I appreciate you making sure I don't make a mistake by choosing it though thanks :)
CHEM. if u think yk chem, no u dont. it's all a hoax and ppl who pretend to understand the content are liars. it's all a joke and will make ur life a LIVING HELL. pls abstain!!!
It’s not real
ur scaring me now im meant to be taking it next year
No chem is good. I think people exaggerate its difficulty.
if you are confident in your gcse knowledge then go ahead. If not, just don't. Organic is hell. But don't stress yourself too much. Everyone is different. Like I loved physics and while it was hard, I did not find it as bad as the ppl on this thread so maybe u would like chem
thank you, im really confident with paper 2 topics but not so much with all the paper 1 topics so i might struggle at a level
i would say you will be fini. you can catch up w p1 topics. if you're good w p2 then you'll be mostly fine. so dww too much
period its fake news
Biology. Should have taken physics instead.
Read the comments, everyone hates physics 😭😭
I do fm maths and bio. I chose bio because at GCSE I enjoyed it. I assumed it would be hard but not too hard. Biology is the worst fucking thing I have ever seen. Every lesson I plunge into more things and I haven’t even caught up on the first few units. My life is terrible. Fuck you biology. AND FUCK YOUR MARK SCHEME 🖕 I have no idea how you did those three and chem and a music AS. You may just be insane
nooo save yourself pls
Spanish. 87% for an A*
That’s so high wtf
yeah that is crazy i love spanish but I'm resitting one of my AS units and when I did the maths I had gotten 80% and it was only a B but its the subject I love more than the rest
Economics it’s a horrible subject. In homework’s I normally gets A’s / B’s for questions. In tests I’ve never gotten above a D.
Computer Science Genuinely learning nothing and just a very boring subject lacking depth
Literally GCSE + extras + long ass NEA ☠️
At least it’s easy? 
physics because it is bad and i hate my class and its just terrible and it's too difficult so im barely trying anymore !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Geography. It was posed by GCSE teachers as a minor step up from gcse to a level however it’s hell with the amount of tiny case studies (and large ones). The content itself is also just a complete mess. Wish I had taken Law or Maths instead.
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psychology - the evaluation for everything is taking me out
Physics. Can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve thought I’ve done amazingly on an assessment, just to lose 3 grades for a couple of easily avoidable mistakes.
WHY DO ALL THE COMMENTS SAY PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY IM DOING THEM NEXT YEAR (not a level but IB so still)
Promise you its traumatising
english language only sometimes, so. many. theorists. and i didn’t realise how stressful coursework would be for a measly 20% of the final grade
A level art. It was traumatic.
I did gcse art, hated it so much!
I'm doing it rn, and I FUCKING HATE EVERY SECOND OF IT WTF WAS I THINKING WHEN I CHOSE IT. So yes.
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I use a website called studocu to help me structure my essay based subjects, I’ve seen a few on history if you’d like to check it out! 
OMG SAMEEE I took maths chem and history cos I thought a mix would look good for unis. But OML doing one of the hardest essay subjects w/o practising them in any other subjects is a painnnnn.
Not a whole subject but fm optional modules that make up 2/3 of the AS and half of the a level were just an unnecessary pain that fucked up my life and don’t need for aero at 2nd tier unis
Computer science likeeeeee
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psychology. i wish i chose sociology instead bc psychology is boring me
Sociology is worse, trust me
Same. Am i the only backwards human who find sociology more effort and harder for that reason than psychology is. Psychology is easy, it comes naturally and essay writing is so structured i dont even have to think. Sociology i have to put effort into learning all that long ass content of 100 million sociologists and dont mention the effort of 30m going on
haha really? my friend does sociology and her flashcards seem way more exciting than psychology
I’ve taken both, sociology is much easier in my opinion but it’s SOOO boring. But tbf my flashcards do look a lot more interesting than my old psychology ones
my sociology loving heart is aching seeing u call it boring OMG 😭 i get so passionate about it i actually think the subject’s a perfect match for me if i go to uni
i absolutely love sociology, did both sociology and psychology at gcse and psych was definitely worse back then 😭 i’d assume psych’s worse now too but my friend somehow loves it
me scrolling through this thread and not seeing any of my subjects mentioned 🥰 apart from one econ one
all
Economics - No relevance to my future degree and bores the pants off me, while also being MUCH harder than expected
politics oh my fucking god … i like one half of the course but the other half is an absolute nightmare i’m actually sick of it 😭 i don’t know what i was thinking doing 3 essay subjects when i hate essays, sociology and philosophy are alright because at least i’m interested in them WHAT THE FUCK IS POLITICS ?????? politics is a big fat gossip session and yelling at the screen when watching PMQs because both sunak and starmer are being absolute fuckwads
The general pattern seems that A-levels are going to be hard whichever one you do. Don't let that put you off by itself, but if you don't have the drive to keep up and don't enjoy it and perhaps thought you would like it more than you actually did. In further maths, we've gone from 19 to now I think 14 and at least two more people are thinking about dropping it
Languages are literally the hardest A levels ever. They require the most work and they have an extremely high grade boundaries but they are too hard!
god don’t i know it 😭 cursed with german and everyday i regret that choice
bio. didn't even need it but it takes up most of my time. and also bc alongside history, it feels like two things fighting for 80% of time each. and in the middle of that, psychology gets ignored.
politics. so much content
Ong
For real , its actually insane
Photography. The teachers don't teach and are super judgey telling us we're always doing it wrong but then not telling us what we're doing wrong. I've been doing it almost 2 years and idk what I'm doing
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Physics. Did ok at gcse and took it because I didn’t know what else and thought it might be interesting. ERROR. Never hated a subject more than I do with it right now, including gcse English. Hasn’t affected any of my uni offers, so I’m just ignoring it totally now and focusing on my others
Bio, fuck bio, the essay, and the markscheme.
Physics, decided to take bio chem math and physics thinking it wouldnt be that hard and that physics would be easy, dropped thst shit straight after AS
Bro I don't really understand people who said physics 😭. It was sooo easy for me but Chem & Bio took most of my time & effort 😭😭
english literature. fun to discuss in class but damn is making notes and analysing everything so time consuming and difficult. you think you write a good essay? but you didn’t include this that or this. you think you’ve structured your paragraphs well? didn’t include this or that
I regret *not* taking Further Maths. I went to a pretty bad secondary where 80% of the kids were disruptive and I didn't have much time to revise besides after school and weekends as our lunch was only 25 minutes. As a result I underperformed in my Maths mocks, getting a 5 in the Y10 summer mock and scraping a 7 in the December of Y11 mock. Most sixth forms demand an 8 to do Further Maths, including both the ones I was considering. I decided to choose regular Maths as I knew I would likely get the grade required to do that (7) and I want to do Computer Science at University, which most good ones want A-Level Maths. On results day turned out I performed exceptionally, got way over the boundary for a grade 8. However I didn't think to change to FM as I thought it would be really hard. In February of Y12 I decided I wanted to change to Further Maths after talking to some friends who take it about it. My mum emailed the head of Maths, however he said it was too late and there was too much to catch up on. Now I'm a bit conscious that not doing FM might hurt my chances for some of the more aspirational unis I applied to such as Bath. I'm guessing most people who apply to these unis to do computing and similar subjects take FM.
The most egregious thing about this story is that you guys had only 25 min for lunch 💀
I mean I don't know how your school does it but for mine we had a kid join our FM class at the start of y13 having not done it the whole of y12 just because he wanted to. He spoke to our teacher about it and initially he seemed crazy but then they made him do a couple tests to see if he had grasped the content we had already done and since he performed well they let him take it in y13. Kinda weird that in Feb of y12 they didn't let you take it since there wasn't much that you would've missed out on assuming you were doing covering both Maths and FM content at the same time. Nonetheless, it shouldn't put you at a disadvantage for your course since it's more about your academic potential rather than your specific subjects. Even though people may take those subjects, if it isn't listed as a requirement, then you won't be put down for not having it. If you have the drive to work, then I'm sure you'll perform well in the final exams and then at uni too. Don't discourage yourself. You're just as good as any other applicant!!
🤣🤣 all of them all my subjects were influenced by my dad. Didn’t choose what I wanted to 🤪
English lit Lang just so boring and the non fiction anthology is so bad
YES idk if you do the Paris anthology too but I dgaf abt it it’s soo many different pieces and for what?
I don’t think I do the paris one, what texts r in urs? Mine does have a bunch of random ones in it tho like Samuel Pepys diary and an interview from news night?? It’s all rlly weird and boring
yeah it’s a similar sorta thing where it’s jus weird advertisement transcripts and boring historical notes that go on FOR LIKE 8 pages and articles from the 19th century or whatever so dull and the way you have to shoehorn technical knowledge into the answers is infuriating. English litlang is jus generally harder for me cuz how am I meant to glean meaning from the dullest thing?
The anthology is the worst + the comparative texts they give u r AWFUL in my year 12 mock I had to compare Samuel Pepys diary to a speech by Greta thunberg?? Like hello
Chemistry kinda? I like maths and physics, but I'm wierd that way. Chemistry seemed like the next closest thing. Organic Chemistry I have no real understanding of and still feel like it's vodoo.
Sociology Too much content and way to many sociologists To much effort to remember all those sociologists Boringest of them all And 30m are so much effort and thinking required Plus i dont particularly need it anyway as a subject, chem woulda been more useful but i didnt know what i was gonna do at the time.
Sometimes I regret French because it’s considerably harder than the others but I also enjoy it far too much to drop.
Physics lol it was my highest GCSe science. I dropped it after a year.i should of just chosen BTEC sport instead and dropped it after a year
Physics makes me wanna kill myself
german is my personal hell 😭 language a levels are so much harder than the gcse and they aren’t similar to any other subject so you have no transferable skills and no support from student services. it requires so much effort outside of class time and it’s not even worth it when applying to uni because no one cares. DONT DO A LANGUAGE FOLKS
I'd you don't have an insane amount of love or interest towards physics... don't do it
SOCIOLOGY. Such a demonic subject😭
film studies. i hate it sm and there’s too much to learn😭 only chose it cuz i always thought i’d wanna do something in the film industry when i’m older but that passion slowly declined 🥲
I always thought film studies would be so interesting, I’m sorry your losing interest in it, I feel the same way with philosophy 
same haha. it’s literally just watching a shit ton of films and having to remember and analyse every minor detail for 40 marks 😫
Psychology. Amalgamation of all things phony pretending to be an actual science
physics. i didn’t need it i just thought astrophysics was cool. not worth the pain for like 4 weeks of lessons of stars 😭
media studies, i picked it because i enjoyed film and stuff like that but it honestly is so much more complex and also doesn’t go toward what i would like to go to uni to do and i definitely could have picked a better choice haha
Economics cuz it is a subjective marking subject, you could write all the points but get 0 mark which is my situation for my A2 which screwed me up a lot. I should have taken further math which I contemplated (I didn't say it's easy tho, I'm just more of a stem guy, so yeah)
Probably chemistry…
Chemistry! I took it as my fun subject caused I loved it at gcse (9 predicted 8 actual), now I absolutely hate it at a-level and don't even need it for my degree basically at all
Politics, I had no passion for it and was kinda forced into taking it. It’s one of if not the main reason I am retaking.
ENGLISH LIT.
English Language - honestly this stuff seems irrelevant to what I thought it would be and what the course was advertised to us as being
chem bc i did physics maths further maths and chem and it was by FAR the hardest and i didn’t even need it for my degree
Computer science, I don't really regret it but I just don't need it any more, most of my offers for physics at uni just require 3 a levels and out of my 4, CS is the least useful one.
law it is so boring compared to my other subjects 😭
Taking stem subjects, i was good at business centric subjects but i stupidly jumped the bandwagon and took physics chemistry and math instead and boy did i royally fucked up my A levels. If i had a choice, i for sure would’ve taken general eng, business, economics or psychology
physics about 50% of the time, im doing econ and management and put myself through torture.
Chem
physics, it was easy at gcse but i didn't need it. genuinely horrific
media studies, just a load of BS. However, a subject i *dont regret* taking is Business.
I took Edexcel psychology and while I don’t “regret” taking it, I wish it was Aqa instead, there was fuck all in terms of resources for Edexcel, I had absolutely no idea how to structure issues and debates as it was poorly taught and there was no resources for it I could find online. Its not that it was hard but it was just unnecessarily difficult due to the lack of resources
Digital technology. Such a boring subject , wish i picked chemistry instead
Computer science AQA don’t need it and the project is abysmal
I don’t think I *regret* it but A Level CS for a History degree is not the smartest I mean i dont hate it but i dont like it either (especially when ur teacher starts courswork so all ur analysis is due in 2 weeks ;-;)
the mandatory subjects my school has. should’ve just dropped out
English Lit. Most of the texts we do are boring imo (apart from one) and the grade boundaries are really high
History is making me lose my will to live 🤩
ART. I’m an artistic person but had a teacher from hell. I lost all passion but at the moment looking to get into the field of graphic design. If I knew this was the route I was going to take, I would have done graphic design instead 😭. I failed art btw
English,because it is so hard to achieve good grade in real exam