agneswboo Posted May 5, 2016 Report Share Posted May 5, 2016 Please HELP! My High School Counselor has just contacted me and she wants to know what subjects I'm choosing since I have got the Scholarship to do the IB in Singapore. I am currently an Indonesian student but you get my point. I was wondering if these would be the best for me to choose since I'm afraid that I might challenge myself too much in these fields: Mathematics HL Physics HL English A Language and Literature HL Self Taught Language A SL Economics SL Music SL Now I'm going to list down why I chose the subjects since you guys might be wondering why I chose these: 1. Mathematics HL: I chose this because I'm a straight A student in this field. Well, I have always been particularly advanced in this field so I don't see why I shouldn't take Maths HL. And also, I took my A Levels last year for C12 in Maths and I scored a whopping A and I didn't even study much. I just read the books. (Not to be rude or whatever//I think I should take credit for it. LOL) 2. Physics HL: I have always scored way higher than the average student in my class. And my class is like.. the best? since we are all chosen because of our ranks when we were in junior high school... And in my class, almost everybody had ever been the top 3 in their classes in Junior High School. So, I guess this is partly why I chose this subject. Also I joined the Physics Olimpiad training and never really found it hard to understand. But I won't be getting into this field though for my University, which is why I'm starting to have doubts on my choices last night. 3. English A Language and Literature HL: I love reading fiction. I guess that should be clear enough. 4. Self Taught Language A SL: Well, I can't speak French or Spanish or Mandarin well enough, so I chose this as a substitute for Language A. In this school that I was applying for, they only provided English B for those three languages AND Self Taught Language A. So I thought, why should I face things that I don't even know about, I should be doing this instead. So, yeah. I guess this is my best decision out of all of the subjects I chose. 5. Economics SL: I didn't want to challenge myself too much in this field since I am a science kid and in Indonesia, if you're a science kid, you learn everything that has anything to do with science and not letting you know anything about social studies. This might seem like it's fun but the truth is it isn't. And we ended up learning like... 12 subjects? idk. But, we have to learn so much in school here in Indonesia. So back at it with economics, I know NOTHING... Like absolutely NOTHING. But I try anyways since I think I wanna take this seriously as my future career path. But I am still deciding on switching econs to HL and Physics to SL. So, I'm open to suggestions. And I also wanna know if Econs in HL would be challenging for a kid who has been paying attention more to science classes? Because this is really important, I don't wanna go and fail my subjects lol. 6. Music SL: It's pretty obvious why I wanna choose this in the first place. First of all, I am pretty great in music, I got High Scores almost every year for ABRSM so I don't see why I shouldn't take this. But then people had been nagging on me to choose another social studies subject but I think that it would be too much for me to handle. With the Mathematics HL and Economics to learn, moreover my physics and English A... It would be too much, wouldn't it? If I just choose another subject that is equally as challenging as the others.. wouldn't I be failing all of my subjects? but then, I think that these insecurities are all in my head but I really really do need some suggestions on what I should do and what should I change before it's too late to go back. If you guys even read this, thank you so much. Or even reply or just... give me some suggestions, okay? Thank you for your consideration... Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
inriya Posted May 5, 2016 Report Share Posted May 5, 2016 (edited) It really depends on your ability, so I can't really suggest so many things. Scoring IB 40 or above is about your hard work throughout the two years, not just subject combinations.Everyone has a chance to score 40 or above, but it is the process that matters. However, your 3 HLs are pretty challenging, that's the only thing that I can comment on. Economics HL is not hard as long as you have interest + paid good attention in class, you will score a nice mark. Edited May 5, 2016 by inriya 2 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
kw0573 Posted May 5, 2016 Report Share Posted May 5, 2016 You should read all the pertaining syllabus (called "guides" in IB) under our Files section. You should scroll down to the page (one page, not a lot) where it outlines the assessment methods. For example, did you know that you need to write a 2000 word investigation for music and 3 x 700 word economics commentaries? Music, Lang/Lit, HL Math, Literature, Physics, Economics Also Extended Essay, Theory of Knowledge These are compulsory IB core requirements and account for 3 out of 45 marks. Most people in IB that I know have been top students before coming into IB. You may be ahead of others in Math, but HL goes beyond A-levels math paper 3 (I assume you did all 3 papers?), so you probably have a good (I wouldn't call it level 7) understanding for about 60-70% of the content. There is a distinction between Lang/Lit and Lit. Lit is more thorough with literary analysis while Lang/Lit discusses language more generally and broadly. Self taught language A is still either Lang/Lit or Lit. Also I'm not sure if you should go for science in university if you only study physics in IB but not a physics-related major? What are you studying then? Should you also take Biology and Chemistry? To score 40+, you need to make sure you can do well in every subject, and dedicate time to all subjects. For example if you are not comfortable with economics, then you should spend more time on it and no IB class is easy 6 or easy 7 if you just go to classes and don't do much work outside. So you may be thinking 7 in HL Math is more important, but for that 40+ you need to to excel in both SL and HL subjects. I acknowledge that you may be ahead of most classmates in math but you still need high self-discipline and time management skills to score 40+. In other words, course combination is secondary to study skills when it comes to getting top marks. Other courses I may suggest include Geography and Classical Greek/Latin. Biology and/or Chemistry for a more thorough science experience in IB. You may find guides these subjects under our Files section or some online search. 3 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
agneswboo Posted May 5, 2016 Author Report Share Posted May 5, 2016 24 minutes ago, kw0573 said: You should read all the pertaining syllabus (called "guides" in IB) under our Files section. You should scroll down to the page (one page, not a lot) where it outlines the assessment methods. For example, did you know that you need to write a 2000 word investigation for music and 3 x 700 word economics commentaries? Music, Lang/Lit, HL Math, Literature, Physics, Economics Also Extended Essay, Theory of Knowledge These are compulsory IB core requirements and account for 3 out of 45 marks. Most people in IB that I know have been top students before coming into IB. You may be ahead of others in Math, but HL goes beyond A-levels math paper 3 (I assume you did all 3 papers?), so you probably have a good (I wouldn't call it level 7) understanding for about 60-70% of the content. There is a distinction between Lang/Lit and Lit. Lit is more thorough with literary analysis while Lang/Lit discusses language more generally and broadly. Self taught language A is still either Lang/Lit or Lit. Also I'm not sure if you should go for science in university if you only study physics in IB but not a physics-related major? What are you studying then? Should you also take Biology and Chemistry? To score 40+, you need to make sure you can do well in every subject, and dedicate time to all subjects. For example if you are not comfortable with economics, then you should spend more time on it and no IB class is easy 6 or easy 7 if you just go to classes and don't do much work outside. So you may be thinking 7 in HL Math is more important, but for that 40+ you need to to excel in both SL and HL subjects. I acknowledge that you may be ahead of most classmates in math but you still need high self-discipline and time management skills to score 40+. In other words, course combination is secondary to study skills when it comes to getting top marks. Other courses I may suggest include Geography and Classical Greek/Latin. Biology and/or Chemistry for a more thorough science experience in IB. You may find guides these subjects under our Files section or some online search. Yeah, I'm currently doing C34 and also S1 so, it really gives me more insight to the mathematics in the IB. I've also peeked on some books that my friends are learning who have also got the scholarship in different schools in the IB. Yeah, I know it is not easy to get 6 or 7 but it doesn't hurt for me to try anyways. Besides, I'm always a good student (but I also have my moments in class so I can't really classify myself into that) so yeah... And btw, I think the Self Taught IB is more towards Lang/Lit than Lit though, but I guess it would be easy for me since the syllabus in Indonesia stresses us to learn a variety of writing topics that all have something to do with Lang/Lit. I guess I'm not worried about that. For the "thing" about studying physics in IB but not a physics-related major... It's more of a complicated thing for me to talk about but anyways, most of the majors that I want to get into only require me to do Maths in HL so I don't even bother trying to study as many Sciences as I can (like in Indonesia, I have to learn all of the Sciences no matter what I wanna do and yep, basically I'm tired of Chem and Bio so I don't even want to have anything to do with both of them in the IB). Moreover, I don't think I really need Physics, but I just do it for fun (I enjoy Physics a lot). And I chose Economics just to give me a little bit of an insight on what I wanna do in my uni (since I'm terribly positive that I need to do Actuarial Science which btw only requires a Math HL... so far so great) And most Econ subjects only require me to do well in Maths. Unfortunately this school that I'm going to does not teach any classical greek or latin, and doing geography would be a terrible idea for me since I know nothing about geography, just like economics. But economics makes more sense in my head, and it would help me in the future since I'm taking an Economics based major (possibly). And Bio and Chem is like a nightmare for me, especially Biology since I hate it so much eventhough I score an average of A- on it on every single test. I don't mind doing investigation in Music since that is what I have been doing in order to interpret songs as my own... anyways thanks for the advice. I thought nobody was going to read the whole thing. 1 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elc Posted May 6, 2016 Report Share Posted May 6, 2016 (Some random notes from a desperate student in IB finals who is still procrastinating instead of preparing for chemistry) From personal experience, I'd recommend economics HL over SL; I only got a predicted 7 for economics because I did HL, not SL. Hell, I'd be bordering on a 5 if I took SL. The calculation part (paper 3) that SL does not have was an absolute godsend for me, and I predict it would be for you too. Besides, I felt like there wasn't much HL content to cover anyways, compared to other HLs in the sciences. Viva la Eco HL. Also, I had no clue about economics whatsoever before IB (like, nothing. NOTHING. Our middle school ), but it turned out to be fine. IB starts with the absolute basics. At this stage, why not try 4 HLs? It seems you are pretty good and enjoy physics and maths, so I personally don't see why you should drop physics to SL. Besides, it is difficult to say at this stage with absolute certainty in which subjects you will find difficult/easy in the IB to drop to SL or raise to HL. I was top in mathematics and physics/chemistry in my year group of 500 before I entered IB, and had no interest in biology or economics (which wasn't offered) whatsoever, but now in IB I do biology and economics HL with SL in mathematics... well, then again, there wasn't really much of an option since I ruled out mathematics as my potential career path almost instantly as I entered IB. Difficult or not, I would literally do HL for all my other subjects than do math HL. That would still have been less of a workload for me. Sorry, rambling. Back to the subject, I recomend you try all of them out and see which one suits you. 2 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
agneswboo Posted May 14, 2016 Author Report Share Posted May 14, 2016 update: i'm gonna do this for the year maths HL physics HL economics HL english A lit SL self learn language A SL music SL thanks for all of the recommendations. i will still look for more suggestions since i still can change my subjects now. but not when i start so.. yeah... thanks tho guys Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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