<p>Okay I was kind of jealous of sunny12 finishing at one o’clock but I take back that jealousy haha.</p>
<p>In my international school (American curriculum), we have school from 7:45 to 3:05.
I’m taking 7 classes this year with one study hall. It’s pretty interesting to read different school schedules around the world! I mean I thought every school was like 8 to 3. I guess not.</p>
<p>The best schedule award has to go to Raith though haha.
Only going to school when you have classes?!?!
Dude that is seriously crazily awesome schedule haha</p>
<p>@Boss
I never said that that really applied to me :S
Some of my friends only did 2 or 3 subjects at A Levels, over the 2 years I did 5 each year (4 2 year courses and 2 one year courses)… Doing sciences we had practical till about 4/5 in the afternoon, and often the maths or science classes were the first in the day; 7:45. Some days I had only 3 classes, but on the average day (without ECs) I started 7:45 and ended about 3
I had 1 day every two weeks that I had classes non stop from 7:45 till 5 (and then ECs after that).</p>
<p>But yea, some of my friends had such an easy time - wake up at 11 AM, go for their one class, have lunch then sleep or much about till dinner!</p>
<p>@rishav
English you talk, do grammar stuff, write essays, sometimes you have to analyze poems…
In business English you learn different delivery options you have to know who is responsible…, insurances, write inquiries/complaints… things a company have to deal with.</p>
<p>But yea (business administrations/national economy), they are related somehow :)</p>
<p>But the possibility your school schedule may potentially allow!
It is just bewildering to even imagine such awesome schedule! haha
And Raith, you sound like you have pushed yourself academically among peers who aren’t as concerned! Respect for you bro! I know that if I could go to school only if I had classes, I would have taken advantage of that policy muhahaha. :)</p>
<p>@Quiver
Or slightly better… hopefully we get to take more advanced courses… or if they are coping fine - life will be a BREEZE (which I seriously doubt) haha
Maybe more time for partying and swimming (for me anyway) :D</p>
<p>@Boss
Believe me! The amount of times I considered dropping a class or two to have some free time!
Funny thing is even when I was free I would usually go to the gym or pool, or have my guitar lesson (or pass out on the couches in our common room cause I was so tired xP ).
It was very similar to university in a way… some teachers didn’t mind if you missed class, others did. Sometimes you could get away with not doing homework but most of the time you had to do all the homework (even if it wasn’t being marked).</p>
<p>Good school (one of the top in South Africa and Africa in A Levels). I like to think I pushed myself lets hope the adcoms agree haha</p>
<p>In terms of the US system, does that mean you do the whole AP classes, or some IB as well?
(fun fact, I started with IB until I realised that I didn’t have a social science and couldn’t do Eng Lit very well) xP I already do the “CAS” but yea :D</p>
<p>@Iboss - Agree with you on that. If I was given the option Raith had, I’d choose the easier way out too!! :D</p>
<p>@Raith - I get what you mean!! We have all of that in Math. Only difference is that even in Math, we have a Sec B & a Sec C, out of which each student has to do one only. So while Sec B contains vectors, 3D Geometry(Planes & ****…) and Advanced Probability, Sec C contains a lot of statistics!!
I chose Sec B, so all I have for statistics is regression & co-relation! Though we’ve done a lot of the basics in 9th,10th & 11th. Our Chemistry syllabus is the toughest you’ll find!! Almost 600 eqns in organic/inorganic and they around 10 of those in the exam!! Absolute madness!! And on top of that there’s physical chemistry!!</p>
<p>@Sunny, Well that seems pretty easy! You don’t do any literature?? :O</p>
<p>Our English is divided into 2 parts :-
Language-- Essay, report, grammar, Comprehension, meanings,etc.
Literature-- Shakespeare(Macbeth in 11 & 12), Short Stories, Poetry and other optional texts!! And we have to write approx. ten short answers & four 400-500 word long essays in the exam on random chapters in an 3 hr exam!! I never really understood how this tests anything but memorizing capacity!! :p</p>
<p>I was in an IB school in 8th grade and I realized that I was not a good fit for the IB and the British education styled teachers who taught it (I’m sorry! I have lived in America for 5 years prior to that school so the strict and harsh teaching and grading styles of British education style did not leave a good impression on me!) I respect the IB program and its rigor in preparing students for excellent universities, but yeah again, not for me.</p>
<p>In general, and this is totally based on my personal experiences and is totally biased, but I feel that American teachers care less on their authority as teachers and are more like the students’ “parents” who guide students in a gentle way. I went to great schools though, so this is not a generalization for American styled curricula. Undoubtedly, there are fallbacks of the American education style!</p>
<p>And yes, I take AP classes, but not IB classes… Thank God</p>
<p>@Rishav
For our FM, the only options we had for these exams was the last question on the two exams: the pure paper it was between roots or matrix based question; the mech and stats paper (honestly I dont even remember which one I chose!)
Our chemistry doesn’t have many formulae… or at least not that I noticed. It took on more of an approach to understanding the mechanisms and how the reactions happen etc - so for example we did a lot of organic chemistry from alkanes to nitriles to esters, and then also with the benzene ring. Had to know/predict reagents for reactions, what would happen how, why and the physical properties before and after Apparently it is one of the hardest exams in A Levels cause you can’t just learn it, but it is unable to teach you how to understand everything! A lot of the time we had to understand to predict something, rather that given the actual information before hand.</p>
<p>Physics was fine though, lots of circular motion, circuits, magnetism and gravity. A little nuclear and modern physics in terms of the photo electric effect and the application of waves etc. Pretty standard I think - but really made the physics SAT II really easy :D</p>
<p>@rishav
Do you speak English at school?
We only do literature in German
You only have 3hours?
We have 4 hours but have to concentrate on one topic, you can choose literature (you have to read a book for it), write a debate or creative writing (you have to read a book for this task either.) But that’s it.</p>
<p>@Boss
IB wasn’t a good fit for me (as explained earlier). But a lot of our teachers were a lot more liberal than what I suppose you would expect. There was a time I passed out in the common room and missed 30 mins of a 50 min class, came late, said that I passed out in the common room and the teacher was like “ok cool, have a seat” xP didn’t happen often but yea. My Maths teacher kept worrying about my Maths mark (a couple tests I got 80’s - which she felt I shouldn’t be getting… truth be told I wasn’t working but yea)… then come the mock (and now my finals) around 95 But for us it just depends on the teacher. My Maths and Physics teachers were quite caring and “motherly”, chem was indifferent about me as long as I did well… French knew I was there just cause it made sense that I do it since I live in a french country :P</p>
<p>@Raith - From your description, I guess Math HL is a bit tougher than ISC math!!</p>
<p>Our chemistry is way more difficult!! In organic, we have hydrocarbons(aliphatic & aromatic),cyanides, nitriles, phenols, alcohols, carbonyl compounds, bio-molecules, polymers!! And each chapter has a bunch of reactions and properties and mechanisms!! With a lot of short notes too!
In inorganic, we have coordination compounds, all group 16,17 elements and the lanthanide, actinide series and stuff!! Basically mettalurgy & reactions. For non-metals, oxides & stuff!
In physical, we have the basic molecular calculations, colligative properties, chemical kinetics, ionic/chemical equilibria, electrochemistry!</p>
<p>It’s a mad subject, our teacher’s not that great in putting the subject across & there’s too much to learn!! :(</p>
<p>In physics, we had dynamics/circular motion/waves/etc. in 11th!
In 12th, its current,electrostatics, magnetism,electromagnetism,ray/wave optics, & a lot of modern physics!! Way more than the SAT Subject test syllabus!!
But Physics is still easy!! Or atleast I understand it better than Chemistry!! :D</p>
<p>Ohh and I also have Electricity & Electronics as my elective!! Which basically does the 2nd yr BE(Engineering) portions in India!! :)</p>
<p>@Rishav
ISC Math? (I’m assuming the Indian top Maths?)
And FM in A Levels is harder than Math HL (IB), topics are similar, questions and depth are different. But FM (IB) is much harder (though to my understanding about the same as FM (CIE A Levels)) - though not many schools around the world offer it to my knowledge.</p>
<p>In the chemistry, the only things we didn’t do that you listed were the lanthanide and actinide series. All the organic and inorganic you listed, but we weren’t taught full equations, just understanding why and how they worked as we never had to just go from one to another… Imagine having to decide on a 2 or 3 step procedure to change a secondary alcohol to a specific ester - though that is a simple example I suppose. But major respect to your Chem syllabus as I only knew of the IB syllabus being on par (in my opinion).</p>
<p>I agree about the physics definitely the easier science :D</p>
<p>Some of our exams are short, others are long.
FM - 2 papers 3 hours each
M - 4 papers, 1.5 hours for 2 and 1:15 for the other two
E - 2 papers of 2 hours
The history paper was a 4 hour paper (or 4 and a half?)
Art - 15 hours I think
Sciences - 5 papers each, one 1 hour, a prac of 2 hours, 2 theory around 1 hour 45 - 2 hours, and a planning of 1.5 hours.</p>
<p>@Sunny and Rishav
That really isn’t a lot of time… though I suppose we don’t really know what the papers are like? Like the South African matric science papers can have 200 marks and be an hour as many of the marks are for simple maths or stating a formula/theory/law. A Levels you can write up to a page or two for about 5-8 marks… and still have about the same time (but out of less marks… ie harder to get a good grade cause each wrong thing takes off that much more percent!) terrible :(</p>
haha</p>
I never really understood how this tests anything but memorizing capacity!! :p</p>