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Biology vs. Physics


peiyao

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Help, because I'm a full IB student, I can max take 2 sciences in IB. I really do want my options open considering I'm fairly good at science and have no idea what I want to do in the future.Basically I'll be taking one with Chem HL and probably Math HL and other courses in IB,( don't know if this info helps) and another one either in grade 10 or grade 11 summer school for the 20s. And by grade 12, I have a free block open up for the 30 level course. Anywayz I've learnded a portion of physics 20 in chem, don't know if it counts and a portion of bio in grade 10, so far the only difference I find is that the physics labs' marks r slight lower, but my overall marks r both around 92% unscaled.

So IB students, what do you suggest I take in IB and which in summer school, because be detailed because I have no idea how summer school works neither. And for course load, which one is less in IB, also comparing to the regular.

All infos and advices would be helpful, thank you for your time! :rolleyes:

Edited by peiyao
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O.o IB will have a more demanding work load than your regular classes. If you want to keep options open take all 3 sciences, just because it says you only need 6 IB courses doesn't mean you have to only take 6. If you can handle HL Chem and HL Math I'd say take HL physics.

That's all I can answer because I'm quite lost on what information you want...

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noooo, our school only has physic sl or bio sl so they are my only options and i just want to know which one should i take in summer school which one in IB. And if I have the time of course i would take all 3in school instead of summer school , but my schedule's very full and I can't put any more classes in it.

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It depends what kind of student you are for which one you will find easier. If you are someone who is good at remembering facts then bio will be better but if working with numbers is your stronger point then physics will probably be better. However, universities generally prefer physics in my experience. Also, I don't know how summer school works and be careful not to overload your last year of school either. IB2 is stressful enough as it is :)

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I myself would say Biology SL. Chemistry and Biology make a great pair, because a lot of topics can cross over (Biochemistry and Organic Chemistry). The workload for SL Biology is much less than the workload for SL Physics. One thing I suggest is to drop to SL Math and do HL Biology and HL Chemistry. I do HL Biology and Chemistry, and I honestly don't see that much difference between HL and SL Biology. Both are easy. HL Math, however, is death. If you take SL Biology, you'll have less of a workload than if you do SL Physics and generally higher grades, but since you can't do HL Biology I guess you can't do that.

The best I've heard someone do at HL Math is when a girl at our school got 92% in her IB for it. She got an IB 44 however... I suggest that you maybe change it if you want to get a 6 or a 7. In comparison, 9 people out of 22 people that took HL Biology at our school last year got a 7, and 10 more got 6s. And that's HL Biology. Out of SL Physics and SL Biology, I'd choose Biology over Physics. It is your choice though depending on what subject you're better at.

Edited by Jaydon
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  • 2 months later...

I'm going to be a junior next year, after having gone through a pretty intense Pre-IB program at my school. I'm having a tough time deciding whether to take IB Physics or IB Biology though, because I'm interested in both. IB Chem I have no interest in.

In general, the physics scores at my school average at about a 6.5, ridiculously high. I love the teacher (I had him for PreIB physics). The problem is that I don't want to do anything physics related as a career, I'm much more inclined to do something in the life sciences. The scores at our school for IB Bio are an average of 5.7, still high obviously, but not quite as stellar.

I'm looking to get into the Ivies possibly (I have the grades and test scores), so which would help me more at university? Is it more important to get a higher test score for the diploma/getting into uni, or to pick a science that I might use in my career?

Thanks guys, I appreciate all opinions.

P.S. the rest of my courseload= HL English, HL History, HL Spanish, HL Maths, ToK, SL Visual Arts, and whichever of these sciences at SL

Edited by thelostgirl1313
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I'm going to be a junior next year, after having gone through a pretty intense Pre-IB program at my school. I'm having a tough time deciding whether to take IB Physics or IB Biology though, because I'm interested in both. IB Chem I have no interest in.

In general, the physics scores at my school average at about a 6.5, ridiculously high. I love the teacher (I had him for PreIB physics). The problem is that I don't want to do anything physics related as a career, I'm much more inclined to do something in the life sciences. The scores at our school for IB Bio are an average of 5.7, still high obviously, but not quite as stellar.

I'm looking to get into the Ivies possibly (I have the grades and test scores), so which would help me more at university? Is it more important to get a higher test score for the diploma, or to pick a science that I might use in my career?

Thanks guys, I appreciate all opinions.

I would choose the one you like the most, because you will be likely to score higher in that subject. For example, i'm practically teaching myself IB Chem (Bad teacher, IA's are good thou), and i get good grades, probably because i love Chemistry.

On the other hand, you should see the requirements for the career you're going to choose, if you see that they want Biology, then you should pick Biology.

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I'm going to be a junior next year, after having gone through a pretty intense Pre-IB program at my school. I'm having a tough time deciding whether to take IB Physics or IB Biology though, because I'm interested in both. IB Chem I have no interest in.

In general, the physics scores at my school average at about a 6.5, ridiculously high. I love the teacher (I had him for PreIB physics). The problem is that I don't want to do anything physics related as a career, I'm much more inclined to do something in the life sciences. The scores at our school for IB Bio are an average of 5.7, still high obviously, but not quite as stellar.

I'm looking to get into the Ivies possibly (I have the grades and test scores), so which would help me more at university? Is it more important to get a higher test score for the diploma/getting into uni, or to pick a science that I might use in my career?

Thanks guys, I appreciate all opinions.

P.S. the rest of my courseload= HL English, HL History, HL Spanish, HL Maths, ToK, SL Visual Arts, and whichever of these sciences at SL

Certainly need to check for any requirements and I'd also advise looking at the actual IB chem curriculum. I don't know if you have or not but any school curriculum probably isn't anywhere near the IB chem one and the IB one could be a lot better in your opinion :)

Don't worry about average scores, they don't mean much. Grade boundaries change annually. IAs can be graded down or up to great extremes...my bio teacher has had her graded up 6 points and down 6 points before. That's an entire IB point, difference between a 5 or a 6 or a 7...

After you check these, pick the one you like or the one you feel confident in. Physics and bio are complete opposites almost on a fundamental level. One is TONS of concepts. The other is quite a bit of math (not hard math, but you need to understand what's going on mathematically, not just conceptually) :)

Hope this help, goodluck with whatever class you decide on :D

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For me, IB Bio was a breeze! If you're good at memorizing, you'll do great in IB bio. What I've heard about physics is that you're pretty much screwed if you dont understand the material. But I guess it would be more impressive to have on your college application. Really depends on what you want to do when you graduate, what you want to major in, work, etc.

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I don't think it's fair to say that about girls and physics. What is fair to say is that western culture tells girls they can't do math and physics, and SOME girls internalize that message to the point they trip themselves up and don't do well. Plenty of strong women do great in math and science fields and there is nothing different about the female brain than makes it less prepared for those subject areas than the male brain. I took AP Physics and got A's, and I'm female. Anyway, back to the question. I also took Bio HL and hated it because it's so much memorization. I'll admit my awful biology teacher and very good physics teacher makes me somewhat biased here. But physics is interesting. It fascinates me that there are these equations governing the natural world that always work. Physics labs are fun; it feels like you're a little kid playing with blocks and cars again. Bio labs, at least in my school, are a lot of stimulations instead of real experiments.

If you're going to university in the US, they don't care which will go along with your career better. In the US, lots of people change their mind on what they wanted to do when they first got to university and the school is fine with it. Both IB Physics and IB Biology would look impressive. Also, in the US the score on the diploma isn't as important. Lots of people here haven't even heard of IB and schools are impressed you even took it. When they get your scores in July they'll use them to figure out which intro freshmen classes you can skip and that's it. I'm going to go to a public university (not an Ivy, but still a selective school) that's giving me so much IB credit I'll be starting with all sophomore classes and will graduate in at most 3 years. Ivies won't give you nearly that much credit, which is why I went for less prestige and more money saved. But I digress. Sounds like both the bio and physics teachers at your school are good and you should go for whichever you think you'll like better (which I think would be physics!) Good luck!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Ok, so i can't decide to take Biology HL or Physics HL for IB.

I am really interested in them both, Physics more than Bio actually but I heard that Physics HL is crazy hard and you have to be a maths genius to cope with it. Is it true? Cuz if it is then I will take Bio as I would say that my maths skills aren't my strongest. I'm going to take SL Maths. And for IGCSE I would say that I might get an A or B.

Can anyone tell me the difference between the courses as well?

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Hah, no, physics doesn't involve math on that level. Math SL will certainly be enough to take physics HL. I took physics SL (which I've heard is the same math level, just less content and equations to use the math on) and could easily handle it with only math studies...

Biology...heavy content, no math, lots of memorizing.

Physics...mathy, stuff you just have to accept, annoying stuff that won't make sense the first or probably 2nd time around, it's fun though (in my opinion)

Between the two I like bio more, it was certainly easier and just seemed more practical.

This could also depend on what you want to study in college. If you want to be some sort of engineer (besides chemical...take HL chem for that) physics will be your better choice, and so will HL math instead of SL because most engineering programs want you to take HL math XD

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Firstly, Physics HL is not extremely difficult and you don't have to be a Maths whizz to cope with it. It's just a question of getting to grips with the exam styled questions, and getting familiar with the content. Sure, it's more difficult than Biology where I'm sure you'd breeze through by memorising bits of information, but it doesn't mean that it's impossible to do well in it. It's difficult, but not impossible.

And, if you're already into Physics like I was before I began the IB, then you shouldn't have too much trouble because your interest will make you want to learn and will help you get a better grade.

With Physics, you have to bear in mind that the exam questions often require you to think outside the box, and apply your knowledge of different concepts in a question. Sometimes it's not straightforward as to simply regurgitate information onto the answer sheet or so to speak, the only method of doing well is through practising papers. I'm sure that this can be said of any other Science subject, but Physics is up there with Chemistry in terms of the emphasis on practising exam papers in my opinion.

Anyway, I'm more of a Physics guy than a Biology guy, so you might want to get the opinion of someone else.

Hope that helped a bit.

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Guest Soiboist

Physics more than Bio actually

This means you should take Physics. A subject becomes easy if you're interested and like it. Similarly a subject becomes very difficult if you're not interested in it and start to despise it. To compare the courses you can have a look at the syllabi for the subjects. Download it from the files section of this site by simply clicking "Files" in the top menu, but right now syllabi are the only files that you're able to download. ;)

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Biology is boring. The only people I know who "like it" are those who are really bad at chemistry/physics. Biology HL is incredibly boring, and all but few topics (evolution :) ) are incredibly dull and pure memorizing. But hey, if you like it, take it.

Physics is at least intellectually challenging.

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Umm, before we start bashing people...

Biology is boring because you obviously don't like it (seeing as you only like evolution) and I know 3 people at my school who liked HL bio and did HL chem as well, including me, and we all like both and excelled at both and on top of that I even took SL physics with both of those and did well in all 3 of them. Any class can be intellectually challenging if you push it far enough. Biology isn't just memorizing when you actually do what IB wants you to do and tie the topics together and get a deeper understanding of the topic...

Now go be useful.

Edited by Drake Glau
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Guest Soiboist

Biology is boring. The only people I know who "like it" are those who are really bad at chemistry/physics. Biology HL is incredibly boring, and all but few topics (evolution :) ) are incredibly dull and pure memorizing. But hey, if you like it, take it.

Physics is at least intellectually challenging.

I feel obliged to reply as I am one of those that do like Biology very much. The boring part is obviously completely subjective and my opinion towards Physics is rather similar to be frank, but the insinuation that Biology shouldn't be intellectually challenging is just ridiculous. I believe this usually comes from the belief that it is only memorization with no understanding, and you even mention that once in your post. Paper 1 for instance greatly contradicts your idea, because one would get nowhere by just knowing the facts. One must not only have a good understanding of the topics to be able to answer, but many of the questions are posed in a way that forces you to re-think your previous definitions of the concepts, and others force you to make a comparison between answers due to that more than one would seem to be perfectly correct. Even though it is a different type of thinking-skills required than for subjects such as Physics, it is definitely both thought-provoking and intellectually challenging in contrast to what you said.

As for the memorization part, yes, Biology does require a fairly big amount of it. However I find that as soon as I have understood a concept I usually remember it without practicing the terms as if they were French words.

It seems odd to me that people you know who like Biology are usually "really bad" at Chemistry. From my experience they go very well together and people that like Biology often like Chemistry as well.

Edited by Soiboist
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there have been a lot of discussions on Biology VS. Physics, so please search in the forum and read the previous discussions on it.

I myself would go with physics, but biology isn't that bad (I hope you wouldn't know that I'm lying :P) but it depends on what you want to study in uni -- which one would be more useful in your future career.

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