Guest Posted October 17, 2014 Report Share Posted October 17, 2014 Hi everyone! So, as you can see in my signature, I've included the classes I have for HL and SL. Thing is, though, I'm considering either dropping an HL into SL or taking an extra HL. I've always been so passionate about the English language, and I've got an A in IGCSE English First Language, if that proves anything at all. Almost all my books are in English and I find myself expressing thoughts and feelings best in English. However, my first language is NOT English. It's Vietnamese. I followed the advice of many graduates from my school not to study English Language and Literature in higher level and instead learn Vietnamese in higher level since it's my mother tongue. However, I've done a few assignments from English A SL and my teachers loved them. She told me I'm capable of learning HL, which is my original plan when I entered the IB. Now I'm facing the dilemma... should I take four HL's or drop one to SL? What do you think? Thank you very much! Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pink97 Posted October 17, 2014 Report Share Posted October 17, 2014 If you're more interested in English literature and are capable of coping with it at higher level, drop Vietnamese to standard level and take higher level English lit. Don't do 4 higher levels, it's absolutely unnecessary and universities don't give you extra credit for doing it - it's hard as is, anyway. 3 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vioh Posted October 17, 2014 Report Share Posted October 17, 2014 Hi everyone! So, as you can see in my signature, I've included the classes I have for HL and SL. Thing is, though, I'm considering either dropping an HL into SL or taking an extra HL. I've always been so passionate about the English language, and I've got an A in IGCSE English First Language, if that proves anything at all. Almost all my books are in English and I find myself expressing thoughts and feelings best in English. However, my first language is NOT English. It's Vietnamese. I followed the advice of many graduates from my school not to study English Language and Literature in higher level and instead learn Vietnamese in higher level since it's my mother tongue. However, I've done a few assignments from English A SL and my teachers loved them. She told me I'm capable of learning HL, which is my original plan when I entered the IB. Now I'm facing the dilemma... should I take four HL's or drop one to SL? What do you think? Thank you very much! Hello, my Vietnamese fellow! (I come from Vietnam as well ) I totally agree with pink97, don't do 4 HLs unless you have no other choice. In your case, doing both English & Vietnamese HL is totally unnecessary. So you are left with 2 choices: 1. Vietnamese HL & English SL (as you're currently having at the moment). This is a good choice, because you'll get a lot of help from Vietnamese teachers in Vietnam (from my experience, most of them are really good). However, you gotta make sure that the teacher who teaches Vietnamese knows about IB, because Vietnamese education system is completely different from IB system. 2. Vietnamese SL & English HL. This is also a good choice, especially as you feel more confident with English compared to Vietnamese. However, note that there are more students in the world who take English, compared to the number to students taking Vietnamese; so my guess is that the examiners will grade you harder in English compared to Vietnamese. In other words, it's harder to achieve higher grades in English compared to Vietnamese; & this is the downside of this choice. So it's entirely up to you; but take those into consideration! P.S. If I were you, i would follow the first choice. But that is just me! 1 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted October 21, 2014 Report Share Posted October 21, 2014 If you're more interested in English literature and are capable of coping with it at higher level, drop Vietnamese to standard level and take higher level English lit. Don't do 4 higher levels, it's absolutely unnecessary and universities don't give you extra credit for doing it - it's hard as is, anyway. Alright, thank you I thought the same thing... Doing 4 HL's would be unnecessary but I'm really torn between choosing between Vietnamese and Biology to be SL. What do you think? Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted October 21, 2014 Report Share Posted October 21, 2014 Hi everyone! So, as you can see in my signature, I've included the classes I have for HL and SL. Thing is, though, I'm considering either dropping an HL into SL or taking an extra HL. I've always been so passionate about the English language, and I've got an A in IGCSE English First Language, if that proves anything at all. Almost all my books are in English and I find myself expressing thoughts and feelings best in English. However, my first language is NOT English. It's Vietnamese. I followed the advice of many graduates from my school not to study English Language and Literature in higher level and instead learn Vietnamese in higher level since it's my mother tongue. However, I've done a few assignments from English A SL and my teachers loved them. She told me I'm capable of learning HL, which is my original plan when I entered the IB. Now I'm facing the dilemma... should I take four HL's or drop one to SL? What do you think? Thank you very much! Hello, my Vietnamese fellow! (I come from Vietnam as well ) I totally agree with pink97, don't do 4 HLs unless you have no other choice. In your case, doing both English & Vietnamese HL is totally unnecessary. So you are left with 2 choices: 1. Vietnamese HL & English SL (as you're currently having at the moment). This is a good choice, because you'll get a lot of help from Vietnamese teachers in Vietnam (from my experience, most of them are really good). However, you gotta make sure that the teacher who teaches Vietnamese knows about IB, because Vietnamese education system is completely different from IB system. 2. Vietnamese SL & English HL. This is also a good choice, especially as you feel more confident with English compared to Vietnamese. However, note that there are more students in the world who take English, compared to the number to students taking Vietnamese; so my guess is that the examiners will grade you harder in English compared to Vietnamese. In other words, it's harder to achieve higher grades in English compared to Vietnamese; & this is the downside of this choice. So it's entirely up to you; but take those into consideration! P.S. If I were you, i would follow the first choice. But that is just me! You do make a point... but don't you think it's worth it to try something that you're so passionate about? You can say that I'm a feeling kind of person, but is it true that you can only do well in things you're into? Not to say that I disrespect Vietnamese, but I'm honestly not as fluent as English for some reason... Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sofia. Posted October 21, 2014 Report Share Posted October 21, 2014 Hi everyone! So, as you can see in my signature, I've included the classes I have for HL and SL. Thing is, though, I'm considering either dropping an HL into SL or taking an extra HL. I've always been so passionate about the English language, and I've got an A in IGCSE English First Language, if that proves anything at all. Almost all my books are in English and I find myself expressing thoughts and feelings best in English. However, my first language is NOT English. It's Vietnamese. I followed the advice of many graduates from my school not to study English Language and Literature in higher level and instead learn Vietnamese in higher level since it's my mother tongue. However, I've done a few assignments from English A SL and my teachers loved them. She told me I'm capable of learning HL, which is my original plan when I entered the IB. Now I'm facing the dilemma... should I take four HL's or drop one to SL? What do you think? Thank you very much! Hello, my Vietnamese fellow! (I come from Vietnam as well ) I totally agree with pink97, don't do 4 HLs unless you have no other choice. In your case, doing both English & Vietnamese HL is totally unnecessary. So you are left with 2 choices: 1. Vietnamese HL & English SL (as you're currently having at the moment). This is a good choice, because you'll get a lot of help from Vietnamese teachers in Vietnam (from my experience, most of them are really good). However, you gotta make sure that the teacher who teaches Vietnamese knows about IB, because Vietnamese education system is completely different from IB system. 2. Vietnamese SL & English HL. This is also a good choice, especially as you feel more confident with English compared to Vietnamese. However, note that there are more students in the world who take English, compared to the number to students taking Vietnamese; so my guess is that the examiners will grade you harder in English compared to Vietnamese. In other words, it's harder to achieve higher grades in English compared to Vietnamese; & this is the downside of this choice. So it's entirely up to you; but take those into consideration! P.S. If I were you, i would follow the first choice. But that is just me! You do make a point... but don't you think it's worth it to try something that you're so passionate about? You can say that I'm a feeling kind of person, but is it true that you can only do well in things you're into? Not to say that I disrespect Vietnamese, but I'm honestly not as fluent as English for some reason... I'd go with English HL, if that's where your passion lies As to whether you should drop Vietnamese or Biology to SL, that depends on what you want to do after IB. If you want to do something science-related, then I'd recommend keeping Bio HL. If you're sure that you won't be going near the sciences, then you can choose whichever you think is more interesting. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pink97 Posted October 21, 2014 Report Share Posted October 21, 2014 If you're more interested in English literature and are capable of coping with it at higher level, drop Vietnamese to standard level and take higher level English lit. Don't do 4 higher levels, it's absolutely unnecessary and universities don't give you extra credit for doing it - it's hard as is, anyway. Alright, thank you I thought the same thing... Doing 4 HL's would be unnecessary but I'm really torn between choosing between Vietnamese and Biology to be SL. What do you think? Depends on what you want to study at university - if it's anything science related/psychology then you have to take biology at higher level, there is no way around it. However, if those majors don't interest you then I'd advise you to drop biology to SL as it's will reduce your workload by a ton. There isn't much difference between HL/SL Language A where as there is a HUGE difference in the amount of content between HL/SL biology, you literally learn double the amount in biology HL. So if biology doesn't interest you much then dropping it to standard level would be a good idea! 3 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pieispi Posted October 22, 2014 Report Share Posted October 22, 2014 There are a bunch of people in my school who start with 4 HL's (some with 5) and drop them later in the year. I don't think that there is a huge difference in HL and SL in year 1, so try doing 4 and see which one you want to drop later (it might not even be out of those two). 1 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vioh Posted October 23, 2014 Report Share Posted October 23, 2014 You do make a point... but don't you think it's worth it to try something that you're so passionate about? You can say that I'm a feeling kind of person, but is it true that you can only do well in things you're into? Not to say that I disrespect Vietnamese, but I'm honestly not as fluent as English for some reason... Yes you are right. It's so much easier to focus on the subject that you like. In fact, i always recommend people to do that. However, the way i see this is that HL and SL languages are not that much of a difference. I took English SL, but was put in a mixed English class to study with the HL students. But I catched up fine with them (this doesn't mean that English HL is easy; i just mean that there is very little difference between SL & HL English). So I guess my point here is that it doesn't really matter which level you take for which course. You can still do the subject that you like (which in this case is English) and I'm sure you can do well in both of them. There is however another thing to consider. It is strategy. According to my teacher, English HL is one of the hardest subject to get 7 in, because of the subjectivity of the subject and also because of fact that many students are taking that course. 7 in English HL is hard even for an average native speaker! On the other hand, Vietnamese HL is less tougher simply because less people are taking it. Furthermore, you would get a lot of help from many Vietnamese teachers there. So it's a huge advantage taking Vietnamese HL. Now, these are just some stuff that i wanted to point out before you consider making your choice. However, if you ended up taking English HL, I would still support you with both of my hands since you are doing it because you love it! PS. I recommend you to do both Vietnamese HL and English HL for a while to see which one suits best for you before you choose to drop either one of them 2 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted October 28, 2014 Report Share Posted October 28, 2014 Hi everyone! So, as you can see in my signature, I've included the classes I have for HL and SL. Thing is, though, I'm considering either dropping an HL into SL or taking an extra HL. I've always been so passionate about the English language, and I've got an A in IGCSE English First Language, if that proves anything at all. Almost all my books are in English and I find myself expressing thoughts and feelings best in English. However, my first language is NOT English. It's Vietnamese. I followed the advice of many graduates from my school not to study English Language and Literature in higher level and instead learn Vietnamese in higher level since it's my mother tongue. However, I've done a few assignments from English A SL and my teachers loved them. She told me I'm capable of learning HL, which is my original plan when I entered the IB. Now I'm facing the dilemma... should I take four HL's or drop one to SL? What do you think? Thank you very much! Hello, my Vietnamese fellow! (I come from Vietnam as well ) I totally agree with pink97, don't do 4 HLs unless you have no other choice. In your case, doing both English & Vietnamese HL is totally unnecessary. So you are left with 2 choices: 1. Vietnamese HL & English SL (as you're currently having at the moment). This is a good choice, because you'll get a lot of help from Vietnamese teachers in Vietnam (from my experience, most of them are really good). However, you gotta make sure that the teacher who teaches Vietnamese knows about IB, because Vietnamese education system is completely different from IB system. 2. Vietnamese SL & English HL. This is also a good choice, especially as you feel more confident with English compared to Vietnamese. However, note that there are more students in the world who take English, compared to the number to students taking Vietnamese; so my guess is that the examiners will grade you harder in English compared to Vietnamese. In other words, it's harder to achieve higher grades in English compared to Vietnamese; & this is the downside of this choice. So it's entirely up to you; but take those into consideration! P.S. If I were you, i would follow the first choice. But that is just me! You do make a point... but don't you think it's worth it to try something that you're so passionate about? You can say that I'm a feeling kind of person, but is it true that you can only do well in things you're into? Not to say that I disrespect Vietnamese, but I'm honestly not as fluent as English for some reason... I'd go with English HL, if that's where your passion lies As to whether you should drop Vietnamese or Biology to SL, that depends on what you want to do after IB. If you want to do something science-related, then I'd recommend keeping Bio HL. If you're sure that you won't be going near the sciences, then you can choose whichever you think is more interesting. Haha, listen to my heart, huh? I love Biology and I'm doing Psychology when I grow up so I think it's better to keep Biology HL. However, my grade for Biology HL will never be as high as Vietnamese HL though... What do you think? If you're more interested in English literature and are capable of coping with it at higher level, drop Vietnamese to standard level and take higher level English lit. Don't do 4 higher levels, it's absolutely unnecessary and universities don't give you extra credit for doing it - it's hard as is, anyway. Alright, thank you I thought the same thing... Doing 4 HL's would be unnecessary but I'm really torn between choosing between Vietnamese and Biology to be SL. What do you think? Depends on what you want to study at university - if it's anything science related/psychology then you have to take biology at higher level, there is no way around it. However, if those majors don't interest you then I'd advise you to drop biology to SL as it's will reduce your workload by a ton. There isn't much difference between HL/SL Language A where as there is a HUGE difference in the amount of content between HL/SL biology, you literally learn double the amount in biology HL. So if biology doesn't interest you much then dropping it to standard level would be a good idea! Haha, I'm doing Psychology in university! Alright, Biology HL seems to be compulsory. There are a bunch of people in my school who start with 4 HL's (some with 5) and drop them later in the year. I don't think that there is a huge difference in HL and SL in year 1, so try doing 4 and see which one you want to drop later (it might not even be out of those two). You do make a point... but don't you think it's worth it to try something that you're so passionate about? You can say that I'm a feeling kind of person, but is it true that you can only do well in things you're into? Not to say that I disrespect Vietnamese, but I'm honestly not as fluent as English for some reason... Yes you are right. It's so much easier to focus on the subject that you like. In fact, i always recommend people to do that. However, the way i see this is that HL and SL languages are not that much of a difference. I took English SL, but was put in a mixed English class to study with the HL students. But I catched up fine with them (this doesn't mean that English HL is easy; i just mean that there is very little difference between SL & HL English). So I guess my point here is that it doesn't really matter which level you take for which course. You can still do the subject that you like (which in this case is English) and I'm sure you can do well in both of them. There is however another thing to consider. It is strategy. According to my teacher, English HL is one of the hardest subject to get 7 in, because of the subjectivity of the subject and also because of fact that many students are taking that course. 7 in English HL is hard even for an average native speaker! On the other hand, Vietnamese HL is less tougher simply because less people are taking it. Furthermore, you would get a lot of help from many Vietnamese teachers there. So it's a huge advantage taking Vietnamese HL. Now, these are just some stuff that i wanted to point out before you consider making your choice. However, if you ended up taking English HL, I would still support you with both of my hands since you are doing it because you love it! PS. I recommend you to do both Vietnamese HL and English HL for a while to see which one suits best for you before you choose to drop either one of them Yes, that is what my IB Coordinator and counselor told me, that I should try out all of them at HL before deciding to drop one. Thanks for your advice! Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pink97 Posted October 28, 2014 Report Share Posted October 28, 2014 It's only compulsory for British universities. If you're not interested in them then you can drop biology to standard level. If you love biology then you're better off doing it at higher level than a subject you like less (i.e. Vietnamese), however, it honestly depends on your goal. If you're aiming to maximize your overall score then do higher level Vietnamese instead of biology - this is a decision you can only make. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thrashmaster Posted October 28, 2014 Report Share Posted October 28, 2014 If you're more interested in English literature and are capable of coping with it at higher level, drop Vietnamese to standard level and take higher level English lit. Don't do 4 higher levels, it's absolutely unnecessary and universities don't give you extra credit for doing it - it's hard as is, anyway.Yeah, I started with 4 HLs and then dropped down to 3 this year. It really isn't worth it. Like Pink says, find a way to make it fit in 3 HLs. I know American universities are annoying about HLs in subjects you wish to major in... some colleges want you to already have them HL so they'll be prerequisite, while others want to make sure you have the 'right' foundation so they insist you take it with them anyway and won't give you college credit for HL (besides maybe an elective). Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 2, 2014 Report Share Posted November 2, 2014 If you're more interested in English literature and are capable of coping with it at higher level, drop Vietnamese to standard level and take higher level English lit. Don't do 4 higher levels, it's absolutely unnecessary and universities don't give you extra credit for doing it - it's hard as is, anyway.Yeah, I started with 4 HLs and then dropped down to 3 this year. It really isn't worth it. Like Pink says, find a way to make it fit in 3 HLs. I know American universities are annoying about HLs in subjects you wish to major in... some colleges want you to already have them HL so they'll be prerequisite, while others want to make sure you have the 'right' foundation so they insist you take it with them anyway and won't give you college credit for HL (besides maybe an elective). Alright, thanks! I don't think I wanna do that many HL's either. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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