Easiest A-Levels to achieve?

[Bickleymumma]

DD needs to confirm A-Level choices soon and wants to choose 3 subjects that she’ll enjoy and with the smallest workload. She’s predicted mostly 8&9s in GCSEs so is capable and isn’t afraid of hard work but has just witnessed my DS struggle with the sheer workload of Maths, Physics and History A-Levels and wants to make her life a little easier as she also has to train a lot for her sport. She doesn’t really know what she wants to do at uni and is thinking something generic like Marketing. Currently thinking Geography, PE and can’t decide between Psychology, Biology, Chemistry and Economics for a third alongside an EPQ. Definitely doesn’t want to do English, Spanish. Didn’t do Art, drama, any DT type subject at GCSE. Doesn’t feel she’s strong enough in Maths although predicted an 8. Any thoughts gratefully received. Thanks

I work in marketing - hardly anyone I know has a marketing degree but it is healthcare marketing so quite niche. There’s a lot of people with English and Business degrees, plus science degrees. It’s really varies though. I did Biology, Psychology and Chemistry. Psychology definitely easiest so would suggest that but we did have a really great department. Would also consider Business Studies. Biology I just have a natural interest in, so I never felt it had too much content as it was all fascinating and I actually did that as a degree.

As others say, there is no easy A level. IME there is one that eats up a lot of your time – for DD it was French, for DS2 it was maths for me it was ancient Greek (don’t ask!). But that’s not to say that A level is difficult or more work – just it was harder for you.

Actually with maths and physics your DS should have had a lot of crossover. For your DD I would suggest that there is a good deal of crossover with PE and biology (according to DS2 who took those with maths). Also PE, biology, geography is actually regarded as three sciences for the purpose of a lot of uni admissions.

But your DD should take what interests and engages her. That’s what she will find more accessible and do better in. If there are possible new subjects she doesn’t know about, look at the spec, look at past papers, get the revision guide – see if it looks interesting. And there is nothing wrong, in “academic” terms, with PE, biology, psychology, as a PP says. They are as acceptable as A level choices as any other. Although if she really isn’t sure, I would suggest that biology keeps more uni options open (a degree in biology for example) than psychology, which is not needed for any degree (not even psychology – tho of course for that it must be useful, if only to see if you like it!)

I also think that an EPQ is pointless. unless there is a subject that the student really wants to work on that is not on their A level spec. Not at all convinced the possible grade reduction for uni is worth the work.

DD has just sat psychology exams, she really enjoyed the course but found it was a lot of content.

No A-Levels are easy. If you aren't feeling overwhelmed by the workload you are either doing it wrong and are on track for a D grade, or you are some kind of genius prodigy who should be doing their A levels over 1 year rather than 2 and going to uni early.

She shoukd drop the EPQ if her sport is important to her.

The school requires 4 A levels or 4 plus EPQ.

I actually think if she plays the sport at an elite level she should approach the school about varying the requirement. Maybe offer to do a sports leadership qualification if they'd support that.

No-one needs 4 A levels for university (Further Maths excepted) and doing 4 massively reduces study periods/study time, so it's a silly strategy for all but the most academic. Does cut down on staff supervision and boosts subject enrolments though!

So annoying when schools insist on a 4th A level or EPQ. Ours does and students often end up wasting an inordinate amount of time on them only to drop them when things get tough. 4th Alevel can be handy if you are unsure and want to try 4 subjects, with the aim of dropping one.
Epq made no measurable difference to the students we know (apart from having something to discuss at an Oxbridge interview), a couple got reduced offers, but then found others still got their places after missing a grade so they'd probably have got in regardless.
Otherwise just put your effort into 3 good grades and extracurriculars for balance.

Meant to say I also agree with @Shortfatsuit that resilience is a really important skill. She is clearly bright, so picking the easiest things doesn't seem like a very healthy way to go about it. What does she enjoy? Take that.

Interesting that a couple of PPs flag MFL as the easiest for their DC - as I say, DD spent more time on French (which tbf was a late change) than her other two put together (geog and Eng lit, which is her passion). SO it really does depend on the candidate.

Politics was the most popular A level with my kids, although you don't mention it as an option.

Chemistry is considered to be the hardest A level.
Psychology is a lot of retaining knowledge of case studies and theories so if she's good at memorising then that would be the easiest I think.

I don't think any a levels are easier as such. Although it makes a big difference if you are passionate about the subject. Also there are some level 3 courses that are continued assessment rather than exams and that suits some people better. My DS1 is doing a btec in something he is passionate about and he is on track to get a distinction (equivalent of 3 A's at alevel). He says none of it feels like work at all.

DS2 is doing drama A Level. He clearly thought it would be somewhat of a "doss".

He now realises that a significant amount of it is effectively like A Level English Lit. The other part of it is frustrating since a lot is group work and your mark is therefore linked in part to how others perform/contribute/bother to turn up etc.

So I would agree that no A Level is easy.

Chemistry is a lot harder at a level - conceptually more challenging and biology has a huge amount of content.
I don’t think any a level is ‘easy’ and agree with pp that if you love the subject the workload doesn’t seem so onerous.

Honestly, I think she is approaching this all wrong. If her only concern is not to have too much work, why do A levels at all? She must have some sort of preference about her future, jobs etc. I'd try to get her to engage properly with the choice.

FWIW in terms of workload, I think maths can be a good choice for an able pupil as there is not a huge amount of revision provided she keeps on top of the course throughout- no large volume of information to commit to memory so long as she actually understands what she is doing. So all that she'll need to do at the end is some past papers to get a sense of the pace.

But no A level is easy objectively- it depends on her aptitudes. Trying to choose based on what someone else found easy is a very bad idea.

I've been teaching sixth form for 14 years and Chemistry is consistently the subject that most students come to me about weeping. Having lost the plot with it myself around age 15 I can empathise...

My experience has been that Maths devours a huge amount of time though. The syllabuses are really really demanding these days (I couldn't pass Maths A-level nowadays and I HAVE Maths A-level at an A in old money pre grade inflation...) So it's not a great choice for a student who has time limitations. They could end up with CCC or something due to not being all that fab at Maths (grade 8 at GCSE is not fab at Maths these days) and the Maths distracting them from the other subjects, especially new ones like Econ and Psych.

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.

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!

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.

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

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.

@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.

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.

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.

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.

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.