<p>Hi, can anyone please give me an indication of the relative difficulty of British A-Levels against the US AP exams?</p>
<p>A-levels cover more material more in-depth than APs, but students take fewer of them. I would rank them on equal levels difficulty-wise.</p>
<p>Top British universities never ask for more than 3 A Levels.</p>
<p>Oxbridge actually says having more will not be to your advantage.</p>
<p>This means most students take either 3-4 A Levels. Those who take half a dozen is just plain bored, I guess :P</p>
<p>On the other hand people take loads and loads of APs and people with 8-9 at some schools is normal.</p>
<p>In the British admissions system, the A Levels and the APs have equal weight - a big plus for APers who’re going to England.</p>
<p>I’m doing 4 A Levels myself and I must say there is a lot more depth in it than in the AP. The topics are much fewer, but the actual content within each topic is much more in A Levels.</p>
<p>A levels are harder, imo. like the poster above me mentioned, people usually do 3-4 A levels, while american students easily do 7+ APs.</p>
<p>but between A levels and the IB… well that’s a whole different ball game.</p>
<p>
Do you think a courseload of 3-4 A-levels is easier than a courseload of 6 APs?</p>
<p>well i wouldn’t be able to tell you that since i didn’t do both to make a proper comparison. but just from looking at the AP guidelines and sample questions on collegeboard, whatever’s covered for each AP seems to be relatively general when compared to the A levels. to me, anyway.</p>
<p>"College Board data showed that only 2.7 percent of AP students took six or more tests in the past three years, as Daniels did. But he said he was glad he did. “College is a competitive place,” he said. “Competing in high school is good preparation for college.”</p>
<p>[Too</a> Many AP Courses? It’s Possible, Official Says - washingtonpost.com](<a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/06/AR2007020600738.html]Too”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/06/AR2007020600738.html)</p>
<p>Who are the american students people know with 7+? Most high schools offer at most 10.</p>
<p>I agree though- the AP is more general than indepth compared to the A-levels- I dont know if that translates to difficulty. Some people revise for their A levels in just two weeks and get A* in a subject so it might not be as difficult as it is. </p>
<p>Personally I think both exams are too grade inflated and its very difficult to distinguish good students. Moreover most people from private high schools/colleges always do better because they are specifically prepared for these tests. </p>
<p>IB is way better.</p>
<p>
You have a good point but I would like to put this into perspective. </p>
<p>A-levels are all about passing the board exams. AP courses at not - in fact, many students take AP courses without taking the AP exam. The number of AP exams a student takes may not reflect the number of AP courses they took. </p>
<p>Secondly, the US secondary education system is much less standardized, and many schools teach AP material in courses that are not labeled as AP. When I was attending a US high school for a year, I was taking three courses that covered AP-material: the equivalent of AP Physics B in a “college physics” class, “college psychology” instead of AP psychology, and “honors English” instead of AP literature. All three classes had (one or two) students who decided to take the AP exam independently at a neighboring high school. This particular high school supported only three AP courses: AP Calculus AB, AP Statistics and AP US History. I guess that this approach reduced the pressure on students to amass AP credits and the pressure on teachers to “teach to the test.” </p>
<p>In contrast, the UK school system is not flexible enough to accommodate students who want to study college-prep material outside of a standardized curriculum. If US students needed to pass 6 AP exams in order to go to college, many more students would be taking them.</p>
<p>The thing with the UK system is that there are no “other” courses. You either take the A Level Biology or you don’t take Biology at all.</p>
<p>I disagree though with the above post, which college-prep subject is offered in AP and not the A Level curriculum?</p>
<p>I agree with depr91, most A Level concepts you actually have to sit and think about them. It’s not that there is a lot of content - there is more content on AP, I have seen their textbooks, but the level of detail that A Level goes in way deeper than AP. Some simple biological concepts such as the dozen or so organ systems are completely ignored in A Level. These concepts are already widely accepted and thoroughly researched in the international science scene, and I believe the A Level rather wants to tailor its students to study currently “hot”, debatable topics, not a topic which is largely finalized, such as the digestive systems. Of course, this is at a loss to A Level students in that if they do not have a strong grasp of the simple concepts of Biology, they would never get a chance to study that in class, whereas the AP curriculum covers a much wider range of topics and makes the student more adept at the various branches of Biology and not just the currently emerging, currently developing ones.</p>
<p>I’d say A-level (at least the one in Hong Kong) is definitely harder than AP:</p>
<p>I found one example problem:</p>
<p>Let a, b, and c be real numbers such that a+b+c=1. Prove that a^2 + b^2 +c^2 >= 1/3</p>
<p>It’s problem one of the “easier” one for them.</p>
<p>Hong Kong and Singapore A-levels have a reputation for being harder than British A-levels. Do you think that’s true?</p>
<p>Your problem only demonstrates that your math curriculum covers a different set of material from the AP curriculum. The problem is straight-forward using multivariable calculus or a theorem from number theory, neither of which are part of AP math.</p>
<p>What’s the difference between A-levels and IB? Is IB more/less rigorous?</p>
<p>barium,</p>
<p>It’s definitely true for Hong Kong.</p>
<p>There’s a logical reason to this: the curve. Hong Kong exam board set the %A anywhere from sub-1% to 4%, depending on the subject. If the exams were too easy, they would have a hard time to decide who deserve As because too many would have good scores. </p>
<p>There’s a study called “A research study into comparison of grades achieved in the Hong Kong HKCEE and HKALE with the GCSE and British GCE A level”. Based on grade distribution, the author found that students achieving a C grade in the Hong Kong qualification would usually achieve an A grade in the comparable UK qualification. But based on anedotes, I would say even a student achieving a D grade may still get an A in UK. For example, my friend with a D in Pure Mathematics got 800 on SAT math. The study assumes the two populations are equal but my guess is the HK population are probably more studious on average.</p>
<p>
Students pursing A-levels spend 2 years studying 3-4 subjects in depth, often closely subjects. In contrast, the IB focuses on a well-rounded education. Students choose one class each from 6 academic divisions and complete a few other requirements that are supposed to help with students’ academic and personal development.</p>
<p>Both A-levels and the IB are considered more advanced than the standard American high school curriculum. Which of A-levels and IB is harder is subject to debate.</p>
<p>I’ve been refraining from adding to this conversation since the poster specifically asked about the British A Levels and I only have experience with the Singaporean A Levels (not with IB or AP), but here are my thoughts (note also that my A Level experience was strictly in the humanities, not the sciences):</p>
<ol>
<li><p>A Levels encourage depth, APs encourage breadth. No question about that.</p></li>
<li><p>As a matter of personal preference, and partly informed by a negative experience teaching in a school setting: I favour depth over breadth.</p></li>
<li><p>I cannot comment on the depth the British A Levels offer. I will say, however, that I strongly believe the Singaporean A Level humanities demand deeper critical analysis than the equivalent APs, and that KI demands more rigor in the independent study than IB’s TOK (partly a factor of the curricular structure), and that while the IB EE is longer than H3 research papers, I have generally seen more depth in H3s than in EEs. (I haven’t seen much IB work, so it could simply be sample size.)</p></li>
<li><p>The reason I favour depth over breadth is that many of the skills developed in rigorous critical analysis can be applied to any new information. Having depth first gives you the resources to expand breadthwise later, in or out of school. Having breadth first doesn’t necessarily offer you the resources to deepen your critical understanding.</p></li>
<li><p>The biggest downside with the A Levels is - science can inform art, and art can inform science. The way the A Levels are set up, it’s very easy to ignore or deny that, and students can go through their A Levels not only not understanding a completely different field, but end up with an aversion to it in the belief it’s not relevant to their work.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>There, /0.02¢ that didn’t answer the OP’s question at all.</p>
1 Like
<p>I have experience with International A Levels(British but not exactly the one they teach in the UK). I am currently thinking of doing some APs too. Probably some math courses and english. I find AP to be far more easier than A Levels. As mentioned in previous posts too, students can easily take like…7 APs…but if you dare to take 7 A Levels…oh god…that will be so much difficult. So, I’d say A Levels is far more difficult. I find AP to be really easy. Some of the things are the ones we studied in 9th or 10th grade!</p>
I’m an American who has taken 7 APs and its not like we take that many in one year, also that the information on college board isn’t really how we do APs. Also in the US its not possible for a high school student to focus on only one subject, we have to meet a quota, and every state is different and every district within that state has their own rules so there is no national constancy in education. The AP tests are also based on a nation wide scale and the questions actually are specific but not as rigorous as the classes, those are very fast and in all honesty most kids that take the AP test are not taught very well so the standards are lower. That and we have too many laws that prevent certain styles of teaching and will only promote weak and pointless practices. Basically the US education is completely different than the rest of the world and there are too many students to be able to have things like the A levels, that and school is mandatory in our country so most people just fail because they hate it.
Also half of the kids who take the AP exams are forced to based off of laws in their states, that’s why college board makes the passing percentage so low. In actuality, the kids that really want to learn will always get a 4+ no matter what.
Also AP and IB are either practically the same or on two different levels, depending on what school district you are in. In my school every class is a lecture hall, so it’s hard to implement any standard IB or AP environment because we already function like a college (in the US college and University mean the same thing)
And in California we do have an exit exam that we take in our Sophomore year called the CAHSEE, other states have similar exams but they are all pretty much designed for you to pass (the No Child Left Behind Policy makes them so easy, they used to be much harder), a 7th grader could pass them.
I just think it depends on what school you go to and what your classes are like to compare to the A levels.
MODERATOR’S NOTE:
The original question was asked 6 years ago, so I doubt that the original poster is still looking for opinions. Older threads should be used for research, but should not be revived. Closing.