Easiest A-Levels to achieve?

It was a while ago but I did Chemistry and Biology. Chemistry is so hard, so much harder than GCSE. Biology also harder, but I didn't find it nearly as hard. Just more in depth and a lot more interesting.

It’s very individual. She has to pick what she enjoys and is good at - that will be easy for her. I did sciences and maths and found them all easy, sailed through exams with almost full marks. But I would have found history, geography etc a nightmare. Art might be a lot of work, but for someone who enjoys art it’s essentially a hobby. There’s no subject that’s easy for everyone.

Maths teacher here. Very able students find maths easy, but by very able I am talking about those who get a high grade 9 at GCSE. My grade 8 students really need to work hard to make progress at A-level.

Maths is also a tricky subject as if you don’t get a concept you can feel utterly lost and have no idea what the lesson is about. And uncertainties can build and you can get further and further behind. If you don’t enjoy maths don’t do it!

I teach biology a level and I would say it's one of the biggest jumps from GCSE. It's also very content heavy - it's not a subject you can breeze through if you are good at it as you still need to learn everything. Chemistry is also content heavy and I agree with the advice that doing chemistry and no other science subjects would be hard.

If she were considering biology and chemistry or biology and psychology I think that's a bit different as there is overlap in the content.

I'd also add that geography is quite high workload due to the coursework.

PE, psychology and biology could be a nice combination with a decent overlap between subjects which would reduce the content she has to learn a bit.

@Bickleymumma biology 100%.

Not sure all the PPs have fully taken on board that your DD is obviously at elite level in a sport. DS was the same and found that Biology and PE compliment and crossover each other and both contain elements relevant to high-level sport. (Incidentally he now works in his sport, though admittedly no longer competes at professional level.)

Also those subjects would get her onto a sports-related degree if that's what she wants. The addition of geography (which is considered a science by many universities) would also enable her to do a science-related degree if she would prefer to do that.

Students are advised to do maths if they study physics at A level. Physics is applied maths really. If she isn't too keen on maths, avoid physics. Physics is easier than chemistry I believe though, but certainly isn't an easy A level.

I'm a science teacher. Biology has a huge amount of content to learn which takes a lot of time. Also need to do a lot of past paper questions to get wording right to score higher marks. Chemistry is rock hard and many bright, able student struggle and have to spend a lot of time outside of class to get their head around it. Students tend to find psychology much easier - achieve higher grades with less work. Can't comment on economics.

No a level is easy to achieve...honestly. however, if a student is engaged with the subject they 'find' it easier. Go with the subjects your child likes

To be honest it's all down to time management. As DD does 4 A-level's, trains for a sport 6 times a week and does 2 work shifts, yes I know she's mad especially as one of her A-level's is art 🙈.

Oh I forgot she volunteers as well.

No she really doesn't have time for anything else but she's not a big sociliser and likes to be busy. She's was only a 7 average at GCSE and is looking at A/B's for her A-level's as she works hard.

She needs to be thinking more about what she wants to do after A-level's rather then how hard they are, as if she does the wrong ones she won't be able to do what she wants at Uni, which is probably more important. We encourage DD to do maths as she was interested in biology and would need more Stem subjects. Glad we did as she's now decided she wants to do biology at uni and without another stem subject she couldn't do it.

I think they are all as hard as each other.

They re-did them a few years back to sort it all out.

But, my son has found maths and further maths gcse perfect preperation for A level as it all follow ons.

Whereas his friend has found A level French doesnt really follow on from gcse neatly so it's harder.

@ageratum1 you might say that. But for those who get maths, it's not a difficult subject. I have a 1st in Engineering and then a PhD. I did not find maths difficult until my PhD (with hidden Markov models if you are interested). I attributed the difficulty from having done an Engineering undergraduate instead of maths/physics. Many working in the area has maths degrees.

There’s quite a lot of statistics, data interpretation and research methods in psych and economics. How does she feel about that?

@agerageratum1 that research is based on data from 2006. The syllabuses have all changed.

But anyway, mark bands reflect the difficulty of the papers. So e.g. Chemistry might be objectively harder, but you'd need fewer marks to get an A than in Business Studies (for example).

Besides, taking a subject because you believe it's "easier" does not suggest tremendous suitability for advanced level study, does it?

Some research by Durham University "Dr Robert Coe, main author of the study, said: "At A-level, science, maths and technology subjects are not just more difficult than the non-sciences, they are without exception among the hardest of all A-levels. At GCSE, the sciences are a little more difficult than the non-sciences."

Economics is NOT EASY (there is a certain type of student that finds it easier, for sure, but from the OP's description I'm not sure it applies).

And nor is Psychology.

It is hard to start a brand new subject and get to a high level in 18 months.

My dd found Chemistry hard but less time consuming than psychology which had so many research examples to memorise. With Chemistry it took a while to understand it but once she understood it then it was easier to revise. Biology was a lot of content, perhaps not as much as Psychology and the concepts she found fairly straightforward. Some of the questions were a bit left field. I think it just shows that different people will find different subjects difficult. Has she looked at the style of questions for A level for the different subjects? Does she prefer more short answer questions or essay questions?

Biology perhaps has more overlap with PE than the other subjects, Psychology might be more useful longer term in her degree. My dd has found psychology to be the most useful A level subject so far in her first year studying medicine.

I'd choose EPQ over another A-level any day, she can do a lot of the work over the summer hols before she even starts her A-levels. Do the research (DS got some books off ebay and used Google scholar), decide on a title, Gantt Chart, plan the content of each section, have a table ready to document the skills used during each stage (look up dissertation/essay writing skills and cram as many in as possible) and to analyse how successful each stage was - this then makes filling in the log easy.

For A-levels Chem is considered one of the hardest and Biology has a ridiculous amount of content. I'd go Psychology or Economics. You might find however that the easiest subjects have the highest grade boundaries because they are easier.

A post above reminded me of the thing that has always caused the most strife in our household. Any qualification that involves groupwork, especially if that qualification is graded with an element of groupwork. It can go swimmingly, but when it doesn't it is hellish and this applies all the way up to degree level (and no this doesn't equip them for the world of work). So Drama would be off my easy list for this reason.

@ErrolTheDragon speaks truth.

Economics and Maths are fairly easy to pass (I think it was around 9% to pass with an E for Maths in 2022 and 21% for Economics). But A/A* dished out much more sparingly.

Does it have to be A-levels? Maybe a business BTec diploma might suit her better. She can learn about marketing and related skills that way, and uni will still be an option for her.

My DD is doing Psychology and there is a lot of work involved. She loves it and finds it really interesting so it's fine for her but it would be difficult if you didn't enjoy it

I found Chemistry to be the easiest at A level, but that was 40 years go so I don't know if the A level has changed.

There will also be some overlarp with geography.

Apologies if someone has already pointed this out, but A levels generally reckoned to be 'easier' may not be easier to get good grades in!

Yeh @Phineyj my DS2 got an 8 in maths and is clearly the best at it in our household - but he found the A level (ahem) a challenge. He gained a hard-won B with a lot of work. That was what he needed so no worries but it is not an easy choice.

@Bickleymumma no choice is objectively easy, tho some may seem easier to her. But I agree with others, why is she looking for the easiest A level? Does she want an easy life? If so then she should do something else altogether. But if she wants to fulfil what is clearly great potential, then she needs to be prepared to tackle something challenging.