marielne Posted June 4, 2020 Report Share Posted June 4, 2020 Hello! I'll be starting the IB in August, which is very exciting, but there is one thing that has been on my mind lately: my subject choices. Our choices had to be made a few months ago. During that time of choosing I decided to go with 4 HLs. At first my intention was to take the three subjects which were English A Lang. and Lit. Biology Chemistry But, because history has always interested me, I decided to add it my list of HL subjects. A reason for my choice was that I had this idea that getting a good grade in HL History is easier due to the fact that Paper 3 in the final exam consists of essays (and has quite a big impact on your exam grade, at least from what I've heard) and not source analysis/contrasting, which I am not very good at. In case you were wondering about my SL subjects, here they are: Mathematics AA Finnish A Lang. and Lit. Anyways, any advice/opinions/experiences would be greatly appreciated. Have a lovely day! Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChocolateAndVanilla Posted June 4, 2020 Report Share Posted June 4, 2020 Hey! I wouldn't advise taking 4 HLs especially this combination. Do you knie what you want to study at the university? Biology and Chemistry HL are quite hard, but definitely manageable. However, it is advised to take a 3rd easier HL with them both. And both History and English A HL require quite a lot of work. I'm not taking History personally but from what I've heard Paper 3 is actually very hard as you have very limited time. I think you could go with 4 HLs if you changed English A to English B or you could drop History to SL, especially that Maths AA, although SL, also requires some hard work. With that being said, you could have all those subjects, but I would say it would be very hard/impossible to get high grades. Hope this helps And if you have any specific questions about Chemistry HL, Biology HL or Maths AA SL, let me know! 1 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
OxfordCalling Posted June 22, 2020 Report Share Posted June 22, 2020 (edited) Hey there! Taking 4 HL subjects can be extremely difficult, not so much during regular classes, but once you get to all the Internal Assessments and the exam period, it'll be a lot. Certainly doable, but I wouldn't advise it, especially seeing as your subject choices are all quite intense. If you want to do history because it interests you, that is great! And you will definitely be covering a lot of ground in the SL course as well, but you won't have to do Paper 3 which is definitely the most intense one. I did History HL and due to the sheer amount of volume covered by Paper 3, I spent the majority of my revision time on it. As you already have an essay writing subject (English A) at HL, as well as two challenging Sciences, that will be more than enough for universities and it'll allow you to take a subject you enjoy at SL. Believe me, that'll be worth much more than making your life extra stressful by squeezing in another HL. I hope this helped and I hope you'll have a great start in August! Edited June 22, 2020 by OxfordCalling 1 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
marielne Posted June 23, 2020 Author Report Share Posted June 23, 2020 On 6/4/2020 at 9:32 PM, ChocolateAndVanilla said: Hey! I wouldn't advise taking 4 HLs especially this combination. Do you knie what you want to study at the university? Biology and Chemistry HL are quite hard, but definitely manageable. However, it is advised to take a 3rd easier HL with them both. And both History and English A HL require quite a lot of work. I'm not taking History personally but from what I've heard Paper 3 is actually very hard as you have very limited time. I think you could go with 4 HLs if you changed English A to English B or you could drop History to SL, especially that Maths AA, although SL, also requires some hard work. With that being said, you could have all those subjects, but I would say it would be very hard/impossible to get high grades. Hope this helps And if you have any specific questions about Chemistry HL, Biology HL or Maths AA SL, let me know! Hi! I apologize for such a late reply. Anyways, thank you so much for your answer! After some thinking, I have decided to drop History to SL. Have a great summer! PS. I noticed you have a Polish flag in your bio. Might you be Polish? Just curious, since I am half Polish myself! 1 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
marielne Posted June 23, 2020 Author Report Share Posted June 23, 2020 10 hours ago, OxfordCalling said: Hey there! Taking 4 HL subjects can be extremely difficult, not so much during regular classes, but once you get to all the Internal Assessments and the exam period, it'll be a lot. Certainly doable, but I wouldn't advise it, especially seeing as your subject choices are all quite intense. If you want to do history because it interests you, that is great! And you will definitely be covering a lot of ground in the SL course as well, but you won't have to do Paper 3 which is definitely the most intense one. I did History HL and due to the sheer amount of volume covered by Paper 3, I spent the majority of my revision time on it. As you already have an essay writing subject (English A) at HL, as well as two challenging Sciences, that will be more than enough for universities and it'll allow you to take a subject you enjoy at SL. Believe me, that'll be worth much more than making your life extra stressful by squeezing in another HL. I hope this helped and I hope you'll have a great start in August! Hi! Thank you so much for your post! I'll probably drop History to SL, so it'll be slightly more manageable (I hope). Have an amazing summer! Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChocolateAndVanilla Posted June 23, 2020 Report Share Posted June 23, 2020 4 hours ago, marielne said: Hi! I apologize for such a late reply. Anyways, thank you so much for your answer! After some thinking, I have decided to drop History to SL. Have a great summer! PS. I noticed you have a Polish flag in your bio. Might you be Polish? Just curious, since I am half Polish myself! That's a good choice probably. Yes, I'm Polish! Thank you, have a great summer too! Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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