Englsih Literature SL or English Language and Literature SL

[Daryl Ryan]

Hi guys, I'm deciding if I should take English Lit or English Lang and Lit for my group 1 subject. I'll be taking either of these at SL. I'm planning on studying either Physics, Mathematics, or Environmental Science later on in university. My other subjects are:

• Spanish ab initio SL
• Music SL
• Geography HL
• Physics HL
• Mathematics HL

1) What are the main differences between Lit and Lang and Lit. Like the pros and cons of them.

2) Is Lit more harder than Lang and Lit? Based on the marking schemes and how you have to prepare for their individual papers.

3) Do universities look upon more favorably on either one?

4) Which one requires you to read more (just wondering )

5) Which one teaches you more? Is Lang and Lit more relevant in today's world than Lit, since you study media texts?

You can answer the questions or just give your general idea on this topic. Thank you  

 

 

 

[aTeddy]

As far as I'm aware their is not much of a difficulty difference to the courses. In IB there used to be a thing that was "A2" I believe which was like a more difficult B HL, but not as difficult as fluent "A1" language. The Literature course was last updated in 2013. The Language and Literature course was updated earlier again. Consider the language part almost a vestigial organ of the old "A2". My advice is to just take Literature. I do it [as its the only option] and it makes a lot more cohesive sense to me. 

1) There isn't much difference. Truly, there isn't. 
2) I believe it might be marginally, though its really nothing to get overexcited about. I think one of the more pertinent difference is the pre-prepared externally moderated task. In Literature, this is called "The Written Assignment" and is based off literature written in a foreign language. In Language and Literature, it is seperated into WL1 and WL2 tasks which are essentially on a different topic, but on the same sort of literature.
3) I don't even think Universities give it a second's thought. I'm pretty sure that they look at your score out of 45 or even your score out of 7 if its a conditional offer, though its really not important.
4) Maybe Language Lit, though I'm not sure and its probably negligible.
5) I don't have experience with LangLit, but Literature is newer as far as "IB updates" are concerned so yeah, once again probably negligible.

Both are fairly equal in terms of difficulty. I'm not quite sure why they both exist really.