Difficulty of my chosen subjects?

[SalahAzhary]

I currently have summer and will start IB next year. We have to submit the subjects to school and I am hesitant about my subjects, especially Math Higher Level, so would you rate the difficulty of the following subjects please, on a scale of 1 to 10!

 

(1-10)

Math HL

Economics HL

Film HL

Arabic SL

English Literature SL

Environmental Studies SL

 

 

Can you also tell me how difficult Business and Management is?

Thanks in advance!

Edited July 3, 2014 by SalahAzhary

[veregudmen]

I haven't actually started the diploma yet. That being said, from talking to people in my school and reading posts on this site, I think I have some idea of what each of the courses entail and their difficulty. 

 

Math HL: 9/10 (the only reason it's not 10/10 is because further math HL)

Requires a lot of practice. It's said to have tough concepts and even tougher questions. They like to mix concepts, i.e. a vectors question may also have trigonometry in it or something like that, so a strong base and a lot of practice is needed. 

 

Economics HL: 6/10

Is manageable if: 

1) You can write essays well

2) You can read graphs without going blank 

3) You can grasp the concepts and general ideas of the course. 

All in all, not too difficult. That being said, it is an HL subject, so a good amount of work into the subject is necessary for a 6 or 7.

 

Film HL: 7/10 

It would be quite tough throughout the year, at least from a workload standpoint, since the entire course is assessed on coursework and not a final written exam like the other subjects. That being said, it would be easier at exam time since its one less subject to study for. 

Everyone I know who has done the subject calls it pretty easy, but they've all been a certain 'type' of person, in the sense that they're all media/journalism types, with English HL and something like History or a Language B HL alongside Film. All in all, should not be insanely difficult but could be a fair bit of work.

 

Arabic SL: 4-9/10 

This depends entirely on how good you are at the language. There are people who find language B absolutely easy and get 7s with no effort, and then there are those who spend the most time on language B and then just about pass with 3s and 4s. It could be the easiest or the toughest subject. 

 

English Lit SL: 6/10

It's said to be deceptively difficult to get 7s in, but perfectly manageable and quite easy to make good grades (5 or 6) in the subject. Not as difficult as English HL though (obviously)

 

ESS SL: 5/10

Everyone calls it a soft and easy subject. My school's ESS teacher, who also teaches Bio, actually calls it tougher than Bio SL because you apparently have a lot of investigative work to do in ESS while Bio is a course you can manage with some time and a textbook. Not the toughest subject to do though.

 

BM is a fairly theoretical subject, as I've been told. It is not liked much by British universities, because the A level BM course isn't too great and so they assume that IB BM isn't good either. Not sure how difficult it is, everyone I've asked either found it extremely easy or found it impossible. It depends on how you handle the information in the course, I guess.  

 

In short, Math is one of the toughest HLs but it's manageable. Everything else is manageable if given enough time and if your skills suit the subject. That actually holds true for about every IB course though.