Best option?

[Will]

So, recently we've been introduced and given a summary of the DP program. We have been looking though the classes to take next year when we start DP, and I'm having a little trouble choosing which science I should go into for HL. The classes I can take are as follows (In order of preference).

Biology: I like Bio, It can be really boring on occasion; I don't love it, but I don't hate it either.

Chemistry: Chemistry is ok... The teacher I had for it (who most likely will be next years HL Chemistry teacher) made it very boring. I never really had much motivation for that class. I did well, but I didn't really grasp some of the important parts, like balancing equations.

Physics... Some say it's painfully hard, others say it's just really hard. I didn't really like physics, but I wasn't that bad at it. I would like a career in engineering, but I'm not sure if I could handle it. Not necessarily because the work is too hard (That would be part of it though), but I don't think I would find it fun.

I'm good at math, bad at memorizing/revising.

Currently, I'm thinking about a future in biochem or biotech. Just a very basic thought, I have no clue what I want to do as a future.

So really, my questions are:

Which class requires the most work? Is it just memorizing/revising out a textbook, or solving problems/interacting with things?

Which class is the most enjoyable? I want to have fun doing it. Without fun, there is no motivation, and I won't try.

Which class will benefit me the most?

Any other pointers on choosing a class? I'd be really happy to hear them. People are saying how hard DP is and that I'm going to have to work my butt off. It's terrifying me, and I'm still +6 months away from the start.

[mepilokisazt]

Well, the fun of the subjects really depends on your school and teachers. I know at my school, people hate biology. The teacher is boring and the class is considered to be just rote memorization.

Chemistry is considered pretty good, but only a few people take it, because it's combined with AP and is only one year long, so you can only take it as an SL. I really wanted to take that class but couldn't because of time. For you, since the teacher is boring, I recommend you don't take chemistry, especially if you want to test HL.

I also thought I wouldn't like physics. In fact, I still don't really like it. However, the class is interesting and I'm doing well. It's really not as hard as people say. And it is interesting, in its own way. I just won't be pursuing a career in it.

Again, it depends on the teacher. But if you want to do biochem, and having a base in it is important to you, take bio. If not, consider taking physics. It depends on whether you would prefer a more knowledge and memorization based course or a math and problem-solving based course.

I hope this helps!

[twilight]

If you are very sure you want to go into biochem or biotech or medicine related courses only, then do biology. Otherwise do physics if you want to keep your options open. I'm not sure which university you're looking to go to, but the university in my place has a requirement of physics or biology, and chemistry if you want to study medicine.

If you want to do engineering, I would say go for physics seriously. Even engineering that sound less physics, like chemical engineering, is actually 10% chemistry and 90% engineering which is basically physics and calculus.

For physics, you just need to understand the concepts. You don't need to do too much studying once you understand the concepts because the formula is all given. You just need to see under which topic it is and then find the relevant formula and use them. Even for definition question there's no necessity to memorise because you can just derive it from the formula. The only parts you need to memorise is perhaps how to derive formula, and working principle of certain instrument. I don't remember too much, but you can check the syllabus.

For chemistry, there's some stuff you need to memorise, like those inorganic and organic chemistry stuff, but once you get those down, the questions are really standard, so you wouldn't have too much of a problem answering them. The questions that require calculation like energetics, kinetics and equilibrium are also quite standard. So for chemistry it's like half memorise, half conceptual understanding. I find chemistry the most fun, only because I like playing with chemicals. Physics IA is dry and boring, but I can get them done pretty quickly.

I don't know about biology, but the bio students are the only students who actually read their textbooks in my school. For chemistry and physics I didn't even touch my textbooks. But I think biology requires the most memorising out of the 3 sciences. And I don't know if it's just my school, but the bio IA they produce are like more than 30 pages long, so that is a lot of work.

Don't worry about the terrifying stuff you hear. Each person perceive each experience differently. I think as long as you keep up with your work and stay on top of the deadlines, you wouldn't be drowning. And everytime you don't understand something, get help as soon as possible, whether from your teachers or friends or other sources. Don't let everything pile up and then try to understand them right before the exam.

[Marco Lee Solano]

there are three main differences: the content, the problems, and the IAs

I do physics and chemistry, but all my friends do biology.

All three of the sciences require memorisation to some degree: even though my friends complain to me about how biology requires them to "memorise the seven things blood carries" or "the x differences between cis- and trans- fats", even in physics and chemistry about 10 marks (often more) in paper 2 will be definitions. Physics is difficult for most unless you have previous experience doing difficult physics. Biology and Chemistry SL however, are very easy in terms of content, and most classes can finish them by the end of first term year 12.

In terms of the problems, physics has more difficult problems in the test. a great deal of the time, the equations or techniques needed to arrive at the correct answer are unclear, and require a lot of question experience to answer quickly (especially in paper 2). I wouldn't recommend physics unless you really needed it for a career in engineering. This is because if you don't understand a concept in physics, it is harder to track down on the internet. In chemistry and biology, there are MANY sites that have dot point summaries of the syllabus, and questions in chemistry are straightforward and mostly limited to ONE syllabus chapter.

In the IAs, the main difference is that Biology (for a 6/6 in DCP) almost always requires inferential and descriptive statistics. Data collection and procession requires more work to get full marks in for biology than the other sciences. In physics, design is a difficult component because any hypothesis should be supported by mathematical predictions derived from known laws etc.

My personal recommendation is chemistry: you can get a lot of free online help, and a lot of the content is easy to follow: it makes sense. I may be biased by the fact that my chemistry teacher was AMAZING, really one of the best teachers at my school. in a physics exam, you might come across a question that you do not understand, or can't think of how to solve. In biology, you might forget something and those are marks you can't get back. In Chemistry, the maths is rarely difficult and just doing practise questions will teach you what kind of answers you need to put. "Explain why..." questions in chemistry are very common, but are GOOD questions to answer because the answer follows logically: it's not out of your conceptual grasp, it's not something you have to memorise blindly.

Whether or not your chemistry teacher is boring is irrelevant: what you need to find out is

• which teachers are the most reliable at marking internal assessment? if the teacher gives a kid 16 when they deserve 8 and that gets sampled, that is a ridiculously high risk. It's happened to people i know, and so to stop this we all marked each other's IAs and got them remarked by another teacher if we thought the mark was too high. You can always do another experiment, but even if you get 18 and 18, being moderated down even 5 can be crippling
• which teachers leave less holes in the syllabus? talk to old students. Even if the teacher can give an enthusiastic and engaging lesson, do they actually cover everything in the syllabus? i had teachers that taught us less than 1/3 of the syllabus: we were just expected to do the rest ourselves. This is NOT where you want to be. as boring and cheap as it sounds, you want a teacher who will spoon feed you content. this is easy marks, this is less research for you.
• which teachers get the 7s? you can ask this directly to them. ask previous years which kids got 7s they probably weren't smart enough to get by themselves, and which kids got 6s when they should have got 7. this is an important indicator of a teacher's ability.

if you want an SL science and less work, i would say go chem or bio.