The Sciences...

[Drake Glau]

There’s been multitudes of new threads discussing one science vs another. HL vs SL, this vs that, no one knows what science to do because one’s easier than the other, or one has more interesting concepts to you, yada yada.

Hopefully this thread will help those who are choosing choose the science they want to do or even need to do and what level they should probably do it on. It’s a long read but if you have a general idea of what you want to do already you can always just skip to those parts I’ll also discuss some of the combos people like to do since I’ve taken all 3 sciences, Chem and Bio at HL too so this should hopefully be rather thorough.

Before the descriptions kick in here is my personal take on the difficulty level of the classes in order of decreasing difficulty

HL Physics>HL Chem>=SL Physics>HL Bio>=SL Chem>SL Bio

I’d say HL Chem is more difficult than SL Physics simply due to the more content, same with HL bio being more difficult than SL chem.

Physics:

HL: The one I didn’t take so I can’t comment a ton on this, I apologize. But I can comment on some of the concerns and the main one is the math difficulty. IB Physics is not a math intensive course (compared to other physics courses like AP Calc Physics). The math will mainly be manipulating equations and plugging equations into equations. A simple example of being f=ma, a=v/t therefore f=m(v/t). This is very simple though and if you aren’t able to wrap your head around working with letters in math, lots of letters, this can get difficult. I’m assuming that HL physics is similar to how HL chem. And bio works so I’m assuming that by the time you hit HL content the class will start assuming you know stuff off the top of your head. So this class is likely for those who are good at math (SL Math level works fine, math studies probably fine and if you’re acing math studies you’ll do fine) and like the science of how stuff around you works, some of that stuff that just doesn’t seem practical but we accept it anyway.

SL: This is actually really similar to everything I just said about HL honestly. The math is even easier (conclusion only comes from comparing what I see in the HL and SL sections of the equation booklet), math studies is more than enough to get you through this class, this doesn’t mean you can just take math studies, take SL or HL Math, there’s another thread for why in the math forum, and the math edge will certainly help from what I'm hearing. The grade boundaries for this class are generally low too so please don’t freak out if you choose this class and then see yourself getting bad grades. A 7 is usually a 67%+, that’s low, probably the lowest boundary down there with HL math…

If you don’t like math or science, or just accepting stuff, I don’t advise taking this class.

Chemistry:

HL: The jump from SL to HL is giant, not going to lie. SL is very “basic”, feels basic after you’re done with HL (almost feels like common sense…) at least. Something I always told the people that were going to enter HL Chem after my class was done was to take SL Chem, add a few more concepts and add numbers to everything basically. HL Chem is tons more math for almost every topic. Energetics gets more math, redox gets math, acids and bases get more math, stoichioemtry just gets even more math. Also, stoichiometry is assumed to be common sense almost at the HL level. Some of the questions you’ll run into assume you know steps to do that aren’t directly related to the topic such as knowing the stoiciometry you need to do in order to answer a question, or even using it to get the information you need to even start finding your answer which is basically them giving you the information implicitly. Last thing to mention is that all this math needs to be memorized. The packet you get has 8 (I think) equations on the first page, that’s it. Nothing on there helps with acids and bases, there’s no conversion factors (except avogadro’s number and another I think) such as 22.4dm³mol^-1. There’s a lot of memorizing stuff, and most of it is math related or sometimes won’t make sense yet, it’ll make sense as you learn more.

SL: If you’ve taken a high school chemistry class before SL you’re already halfway there. There will be a few new concepts (probably organic and redox) but other than that this class will expand on a lot of stuff you might already know. On a personal note I never liked how SL chem seemed to leave stuff hanging because the explanation was HL so I had to wait a year. Lots less math than HL in this class though. Stoichiometry is the most math I believe. Acids and bases has VERY little (compared to HL) and that’s it for math at SL as far as I know. This is great for those who like chemistry but don’t like math but if you REALLY like chemistry I would suggest you suck up the math and take HL, the math isn’t really that hard, it’s just more prevalent.

This is one of those sciences that seems more practical if you can start to see the chemistry around you. This is my favorite science personally. Not really sure how to explain why this class is appealing though. If you want to know why some stuff happens around you on a molecular level, or simply why water’s boiling takes longer when you put salt in it, this will answer those for you and if you still want some biology stuff there are options for some of that too

Biology:

HL: Holy crud I have never memorized so much stuff in such little time. There’s TONS of information in this class but please don’t let this intimidate you. Some of the stuff becomes common sense and the later topics build off the previous ones and thus force you to use the information you know over and over and over and eventually you just know it. Best advice for this class is simple, follow the syllabus. It’s biology, there’s tons of stuff, you don’t need to know it all so follow what IB wants you to follow. This class will teach you how the body works mainly and touch on some evolution and ecology (unless you take those options). Speaking of options; there’s options for almost everything ranging from neurobiology to evolution to anatomy. So this class isn’t going to restrict the biology you learn, you do get to choose what you want to study, the core will simply give you a good preview of all of it. This is a VERY qualitative class. Very little numbers, in fact the only numbers are in genetics and magnification of microscopes…the rest is seeing what happens and making predictions from that. Of course there’s always statistics if you want to do that in order to give your qualitative stuff some sort of numerical value.

SL: Ummm this is like the math studies of the sciences. It’s topics 1-5 (I think) of HL bio and that’s it. This class is for those who despise science but still have to take a group 4. And yes, that was a biased comment, but come on, you have common sense and a brain, use it please. This is really all I have to say about this class…

Combination time!

Physics…I don’t really know of any physics combinations with the sciences. Only one I’ve seen is HL Math+HL Physics which isn’t even needed like some people like to claim. HL Math is way more math than what’s need for HL Physics, but the difficulty levels are pretty similar with HL Math probably being harder than HL Physics. I really don’t advise this is you don’t like math, course if you don’t like math at all why are you taking HL Physics or HL Math? If you love both, fine, do it, always do what you love.

Physics and chem might be decent however chem will not supplement physics very well but physics would supplement chem. So if you want to do this combo and only want one HL science I’d say do HL Chem+SL Physics if you want to take those because HL Physics+SL Chem will just feel like a really hard physics class with chem bugging you the whole time and you don’t need the extra work if you don’t want to.

Better combination that I see a lot is Chemistry+Biology. However, like I said earlier, SL Biology is not much of a science class in my opinion so it’s hard for it to supplement anything so if you want to do this combo I’d go with HL Bio+HL Chem or SL Chem. Either Chem will work in my opinion. Honestly I think SL supplements the biology better, but that’s only because HL chemistry likes to add new stuff that isn’t related to biology, at all. So if you like chem and bio and need your group6, take these both at HL, it’s not as hard as it sounds. There are a few things you need to keep in mind though. You’ll learn one term for something in chemistry and another term in biology for the same thing. Biochemistry for example (chemistry option) has the 3 nucleotides that code for an amino acid called a triplet, biology calls it a codon. Biology WILL NOT accept triplet, and chemistry will not accept codon (or at least they didn’t on old tests I took, things can always change). The point is though that you need to keep your terms differentiated. Know your biology terms and your chemistry terms but don’t mix them all that often. Sure in your head it works out fine with whatever term you want to use but on the test be sure to stick to what they want.

Things to take for certain University programs:

Medicine/Pharmacology: HL biology and HL Chemistry will look great for this, take both.

Chemical engineering: HL Chemistry, obviously, also most engineering programs require HL Math.

Mechanical Engineering: HL Physics, SL physics might do, please talk to whoever it is you can talk to about this to get more information. Still requires HL Math most likely.

Medical, the actual doctor stuff: HL Biology, do it.

If you have more questions please post them here or even PM me, and I’ll try to answer them in a reply and add to this post for others to read without needing to read all the replies. If someone else wants to answer, feel free, I’ll add your stuff too

Hope this helps in choosing the sciences you want to take, hope it works better than reading through page after page of all those other threads. Only thing different is that this thread doesn’t discuss the class against each other, it’s more of an overview of each class to help you choose for yourself and do the debating on your own.

Edited July 2, 2011 by Drake Glau

[∫ Jorge δx]

I only took SL Physics, but I'll tell you - I looked at a whole bunch of HL material, and it's really just building up from the SL material. The only other difference is that HL has a crapton more labs. I remember we only did a handful throughout our first year in SL, while the HL kids got one every week... And never finished their reports on time lol.

Either way, I loved SL physics - it goes very well with HL math. Seriously, I was one of the few people with that combination, and I found taht the extra math edge given in HL makes SL physics a stroll down the park for the most part.

[bigbangfan]

hey drake thanks for sharing with us this amazing post that reflects the opinions of an applied IB Student!

IMO the science difficulty ranking is as follows (from easier to harder)

1. Biology SL (totally agree with your statement about this subject)

2. Biology HL

3. Physics SL

4. Chemistry SL

5. Physics HL

6. Chemistry HL

It's just my view. I had a big share of problems while taking chemistry standard level, but my effort transformed those problems into a glorious 6. I'd say physics and chemistry are both equally difficult in content, but at the end physics grade boundaries are always lower than the chemistry ones, so the chances of getting 6 or 7 increase.

[Drake Glau]

hey drake thanks for sharing with us this amazing post that reflects the opinions of an applied IB Student!

IMO the science difficulty ranking is as follows (from easier to harder)

1. Biology SL (totally agree with your statement about this subject)

2. Biology HL

3. Physics SL

4. Chemistry SL

5. Physics HL

6. Chemistry HL

It's just my view. I had a big share of problems while taking chemistry standard level, but my effort transformed those problems into a glorious 6. I'd say physics and chemistry are both equally difficult in content, but at the end physics grade boundaries are always lower than the chemistry ones, so the chances of getting 6 or 7 increase.

I tried to keep my rankings away from the grade boundaries because they always change and the difficulty of the content isn't reflected by the boundaries at all. Some of them are about equal so the only way I ranked them was simply by the amount of content which is why HL bio is about even to SL chem, but harder with more content.

The last two, chem and physics, I agree they're about even and the only difference is the boundaries at the end of the day, only reason physics stood out above chemistry is how it had more math and people don't really seem to like math...majority...

And of course difficulties always depend on the person. I found HL Chem to stick in my head better than HL bio which made it kinda easier but then HL bio's mark schemes were always easier to get marks in, so which one is easier? =/

Edited July 2, 2011 by Drake Glau

[Sandwich]

I'd personally go for this as my ranking...

1. Biology SL

2. Chemistry SL

3. Physics SL

4. Biology HL

5. Chemistry HL

6. Physics HL

...because thanks to epically giant course content AND some harder things (photosynthesis, respiration and their biochemistry etc.) I think that HL Bio is a lot harder than both the other SL sciences which are really content light relative to their HL counterparts. They're a lot more straight forward, even if SL Chemistry is also a little harder as it doesn't quite explain things properly. Fortunately in the UK, if you select HL Chemistry you don't do 1 year of SL and 1 of HL, you do both of HL, as a rule. Doing one and then the other would be a good basis but kinda annoying with Chemistry SL being so much easier!

Excellent post though, even if I disagree slightly with your difficulty levels I just don't see how something like SL Chemistry which is a phenomenally short course can be rated harder than HL Biology which is going to take you memorising until your brain explodes!

[Drake Glau]

Excellent post though, even if I disagree slightly with your difficulty levels I just don't see how something like SL Chemistry which is a phenomenally short course can be rated harder than HL Biology which is going to take you memorising until your brain explodes!

It isn't...?

I ranked them about equal on content difficulty but HL bio over SL chem due to the content amount that you mentioned

[Sandwich]

Oops, meant SL Physics, sorry Alex ; Dim move there.

I do think that the content for SL Chemistry is still more simple, however SL Chemistry is a bit of a doss! None of the hard concepts from HL are in it at all, it's just straight forwards. HL Bio does have more difficult concepts than SL Chem, in my opinion, as well as just the content difference (which admittedly is the main one!).

[Rigel]

Well, i take Chemistry SL, and you have to learn stuff in HL to fully understand it. For example, i had to learn the HL extension of Atomic Structure, to understand Periodicity and Bonding.

I take Physics SL, and it's not that hard honestly. There are some concepts, but you will see a lot of formulas. You have to combine formulas and concepts to do well in Physics SL! I wanted to take Physics HL, but my school doesn't offer it....

[Drake Glau]

Well, i take Chemistry SL, and you have to learn stuff in HL to fully understand it. For example, i had to learn the HL extension of Atomic Structure, to understand Periodicity and Bonding.

I take Physics SL, and it's not that hard honestly. There are some concepts, but you will see a lot of formulas. You have to combine formulas and concepts to do well in Physics SL! I wanted to take Physics HL, but my school doesn't offer it....

This is exactly what I tried to say in there about SL chem kind of leaving you hanging. I'm not the greatest at getting my point across though, hope it get through

You don't HAVE to do it, you could just learn the patterns honestly and not worry about the details of why the pattnssn work for SL But that still leaves you a why question at the end just like most of the SL sciences do.

[jess1ca]

Well, i take Chemistry SL, and you have to learn stuff in HL to fully understand it. For example, i had to learn the HL extension of Atomic Structure, to understand Periodicity and Bonding.

I feel like its the same for IB sciences in general. There's no way I'd be able to understand anything without extra extensions and multiple textbooks. It's just too choppy for me...

I'm taking SL bio and we also learn out of the provincial textbook. If it weren't for that textbook, which goes through everything in a lot more detail, I wouldn't be able to remember anything in bio.

[ashleigh7]

I took SL Biology, and it was okay I guess.. Not too much content (okay, a lot, but still manageable). But, my Bio book also had the HL section in it as well, and the HL section in itself was practically the same thickness as the SL section, with information saturated into each of the pages. I don't know how I'd survive memorising all that stuff.. I guess the other sciences aren't too bad compared to Bio HL - they're more of understanding concepts and memorising formulas (the amount of which is nothing compared to what Bio HL kids have to memorise)