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Chinese HL/SL B


chianca

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So I was wondering if there is much of a difference between HL and SL Chinese B except for the literature component in HL? I was recommended to take HL butt I don't think I can do it because Chinese is really difficult for me.

And if I take SL, will that affect my future, like when I get a job and stuff? Just a thought though.  

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I am personally doing A Higher but a lot of my friends are doing B Higher or Standard now.

HL is more difficult than SL because of more complex readings in paper 1 and for sure the literature component. However, IBO does not require any BHL candidates to analyse and criticize it. You just need to write a creative writing based on that. 

If you speak Chinese at home and able to write pretty fluently, do HL because it will be valuable for future career. Personally I think BHL will really get you to learn more because the reading materials you will get are authentic works from Chinese local newspaper/websites. BSL is a bit too easy for native Chinese though. 

Edited by ethanli
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I have a mixed HL/SL B class, and the stuff we do are pretty much the same. The main difference is the literature component, as that's not part of the SL curriculum, although I've seen that it's not too challenging. The use of language is more complex in HL in that your language has to be more idiomatic and use better words and have better structure. You also have to write more words on more complex topics for the written components in HL.

Basically, either way, it'd help if you have a Chinese background and speak it in your daily life to some degree. If your orals are not great and you don't know a hefty amount of written characters, HL would be really hard. As a native speaker, I find BSL pretty easy, but I think I might even have a little difficulty in the written component for BHL.

As for jobs, unless you plan on going into translations or communications, I don't think it matters that much. After all, this is your language B.

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On 14/12/2016 at 11:28 PM, ethanli said:

I am personally doing A Higher but a lot of my friends are doing B Higher or Standard now.

HL is more difficult than SL because of more complex readings in paper 1 and for sure the literature component. However, IBO does not require any BHL candidates to analyse and criticize it. You just need to write a creative writing based on that. 

If you speak Chinese at home and able to write pretty fluently, do HL because it will be valuable for future career. Personally I think BHL will really get you to learn more because the reading materials you will get are authentic works from Chinese local newspaper/websites. BSL is a bit too easy for native Chinese though. 

Hi! Thanks for your reply.

As someone who is Chinese but struggles with the language a lot, I don't know what I should do. I'll be able to make the choice between HL/SL in the coming months but I spoke to my teacher about this and they told me I would do fine in HL even if I said I was struggling really badly. As I want to focus more on my other subjects, I am told to take 4 HLs (including Chinese B). Is this how it's supposed to go because Chinese is really difficult for me? I really don't know :/

 

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If you are considering Chinese B as your fourth HL, then you should definitely take it. If four HLs or Chinese in general ends up being too much, you can still drop it to SL and not worry about your diploma. Attending HL classes and doing HL homework for one year, and then dropping to SL would probably raise your final grade by a point. This is what one of my friends ended up doing, although, they have done it in French. The difficulty usually arises when you take only the required three HLs, and halfway through your first year you realize you can't cope with one of them. But, you can't drop it as you have to take three HLs, and by then, it's usually too late to catch up with the HL material in the rest of your classes.

So, if you are considering Chinese B as your fourth HL, you can't go wrong. You either get a kickass diploma with four HLs, and HL Chinese B, or you drop it and get an also kickass diploma with SL Chinese B, that you totally aced cause you got really good at Chinese in your first year that you spent as a HL student. Alternately, if you take Chinese B HL, and you realize your struggling in another one of your HL subjects, you'll have the opportunity to drop whatever that other subject is to SL, and, again, you'll get a kickass diploma with Chinese B HL and SL in whatever other subject you thought would be cool to take at HL, but got a bit too much.

Don't worry too much. Four HLs should not be viewed a scary commitment, but as a safety thing. Four HLs mean that you can always opt out on one of them, and you don't have to try to foretell the future to decide which one you shouldn't take, rather, you get the opportunity to first try each of them and then decide if you wanted all of them or if you wanted to drop one of them,

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On 12/24/2016 at 3:25 AM, chianca said:

Hi! Thanks for your reply.

As someone who is Chinese but struggles with the language a lot, I don't know what I should do. I'll be able to make the choice between HL/SL in the coming months but I spoke to my teacher about this and they told me I would do fine in HL even if I said I was struggling really badly. As I want to focus more on my other subjects, I am told to take 4 HLs (including Chinese B). Is this how it's supposed to go because Chinese is really difficult for me? I really don't know :/

 

Hi there! 

I think I'm in the same situation as you- as a 华裔人, I myself also struggle with the language. It may be because I come from a Cantonese speaking background, but even taking Mandarin B SL is a struggle for me. I highly suggest you take a look at some past papers (or I could send you some samples) just to compare. Also, I think it's important to consider what you want to do in the future. Do you want to do something with languages later on? Personally, I think that already studying a language to some extent is a mini bonus on a CV. Another question to ask is, does the universities you are considering to apply to look more on the overall or individual grades? For me, it's both cases. Because of this, the teacher-in-charge recommended me to take SL instead because "it's better to play it safe“. Also, it's the university grades that will be more important when applying for jobs. So I think that rather than trying to see if your subject choices in high school will give you better chances at getting a job, it's better to see if you will get you into a university AND THEN focus on getting the job. 

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34 minutes ago, emu112 said:

Hi there! 

I think I'm in the same situation as you- as a 华裔人, I myself also struggle with the language. It may be because I come from a Cantonese speaking background, but even taking Mandarin B SL is a struggle for me. I highly suggest you take a look at some past papers (or I could send you some samples) just to compare. Also, I think it's important to consider what you want to do in the future. Do you want to do something with languages later on? Personally, I think that already studying a language to some extent is a mini bonus on a CV. Another question to ask is, does the universities you are considering to apply to look more on the overall or individual grades? For me, it's both cases. Because of this, the teacher-in-charge recommended me to take SL instead because "it's better to play it safe“. Also, it's the university grades that will be more important when applying for jobs. So I think that rather than trying to see if your subject choices in high school will give you better chances at getting a job, it's better to see if you will get you into a university AND THEN focus on getting the job. 

Hi!! Thanks for this.

And yeah, it would be a great help just to see the past papers for SL Chinese. I don't seem to be able to find any online so could you please send some over? Thanks.

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