HL Bio vs. SL Physics?

Pre-College Issues International Baccalaureate (IB)
1

<p>Hi everyone,</p>

<p>I'm a 10th grader right now, and my school is trying to finish course choices extremely early this year to try to work out all of the scheduling problems that will inevitably come up, so they're asking us to have our choices ready in ~2 weeks.</p>

<p>Here's the rest of my planned schedule so that you guys can see what it's like:</p>

<p>HL English A
HL French B
HL Chem
SL Math (no HL at school)
SL Business and Management (There's a 90% chance I won't do history. I hate it. Always have, probably always will.)</p>

<p>I'm a math/chem person (taking Calc right now if that helps), and I've heard way too many horror stories about HL Art, so I'm probably going to do a 2nd science. I just don't know which science would be a better fit for me, because almost all of the IB juniors/seniors at my school take HL Chem. And then there's the fact that I'm not sure I'd be willing to have 4 HLs, particularly 2 HL sciences. However, our physics program is relatively new, and I don't have much experience in that subject either (I'm taking pre-IB physics right now, but we started 2 weeks ago so....)</p>

<p>So basically, I would like to know:
1) Which of these is more demanding in terms of the workload and/or the content?
2) Based on your own experiences, which types of students succeed in those respective classes?
3) Do more people take the Bio/Chem route or the Chem/Physics route?</p>

<p>Thank you so much! :) </p>

<p>(Btw, I already posted this on ibsurvival.com, and I got one really good reply, but I'd like some more insight from you guys. ;))</p>

2

<p>i’m a current year 1 IB student.</p>

<p>1) HL bio and SL physics are quite different in that i find that bio requires more memorization, while physics requires a bit more intuition and mathematical knowledge. HL bio is a huge time commitment because of the memorization and the volume of material you need to cover, but if you’re not a decent maths student, you might struggle in physics.
i’m taking HL bio, but from what i’ve heard, SL physics is quite a manageable course. personally, i would recommend against taking HL bio because HL chem is an extremely challenging course already, and taking 4 HLs is really not a good idea, as the standard 3 is already a major time commitment. </p>

<p>2) i don’t think there’s necessarily a typical bio/physics student. i have noticed that girls tend to take bio while boys tend to take physics, although this may be different at your school.</p>

<p>3) at my school, they’re both quite even. depends on what you’d like to study, ultimately: lots of aspiring doctors i know are taking bio/chem, whereas the more engineering-oriented people are taking chem/physics.</p>

<p>if you have any further questions, let me know. cheers!</p>

3

<p>Thank you so much! :)</p>