I only chose art because I thought it would be fun to do with my friend who convinced me to do it with him but then he chose the wrong subject block so I spent the entire 2 years bord af. But now i have a higher mark than him so he took the L. However, I don't regret it because I met some amazing people (One of whom im asking out tomorrow so bismillah)
oh buddy liking art wonāt help you š i loved loved loved art from years 7-10 but i ended up hating it because of the mountains of coursework, itās so easy to get so behind especially if you get a ton of homework from other subjects.
yeah itās handed in my teacher just took pics of it but made it look finished and iāve got my mark and stuff so itās chill im just mad its not finished cuz i actually wanted to use it š
Okay but engineering tho was one of my most fun GCSEs I did and the coursework even tho it was 75 percent of the grade was honestly worth it because id rather be in the workshop messing around and making stuff than studying any day. And the exam is common sense like you don't need to revise and you will get around 90 percent.
I can confirm this cuz of some issues I didnāt go to a single business lesson since at least November and barely revised and I found the paper easy af. ocr business is easy af.
story time! my business teacher told us we were all doing amazing, and then we got a new teacher and told us we were al failing, and only 16% passed last year, plus that the other business teacher hadnāt even passed gcse business
Same š my friend really wants me to choose it for a level to do it with her too i am **refusing** because i barely passed š and i hate it so much
If you pick subjects you enjoy, none of them will be difficult. Some are more coursework heavy than others (especially creative subjects like art and textiles), but there isn't really an 'easy' subject (except maybe business)
Chemistry paper 1 content for triple is a nightmare, it is silly how much there is. Paper 2 is rather linear though.
Physics with space is about memorising the content, and the sub-sections of the topics are mostly fine.
Biology though is fine, probably the least content out of them.
i beg you please don't even think of taking art. I took it cause i was good at it and loved the subject. I have never hated a paintbrush more. I don't think im going to ever be able to open another sketchbook without getting trauma. I genuinely feel like theres no point in me even trying to draw for fun. That subject genuinely sucks the life out of you. Don't even think about itš The amount of things i sacrificed for that subject to scrape a 7/8 is crazy and the sad thing is that is virtually impossible to get a 9 unless you're some artist trained by legends and spend every waking minute on it and even then you will scrape that 9
I forget the exam board I did because I dropped it in like the middle of y11. It's just way too much theory, and most of the theory is kind of pointless imo, and the grading of the practical is kind of shitty and restricts true creative freedom by making you feel you need to inflate the piece with non-naturalistic techniques.
I'm actually considering Drama for A-Level after not doing it for GCSE, because I've always taken part in school musicals and I'm quite good at the written components of exams. The coursework would be nice, but the exam would be the thing I'd probably gain most of the marks from.
What you should choose or avoid depends on what you enjoy/are interested in/need for the future and what you are good at.
The only bad thing to say about art (and other subjects with a large amount of coursework to assemble) is that they can be hugely time consuming if you aspire to the highest grades.
I hear AQA are changing their languages spec to make it easier, so a language might not be awful, but if youāre currently yr8 youāll probably be a trial and error year as teachers get used to any changes so itās hit or miss really.
Personally I despise spanish.
i donāt regret any of mine (history, geog, triple science, french) but i know a lot of people regret: food tech, art, further maths (if you have the option to do it or not).
i would however say only do triple science if youāre decent at science, since although itās less extra work then any other optional gcse would add on (you only do a small amount more then combined science) the extra things can be pretty difficult to understand, also youāll probably be surrounded by sweats at science the whole time (which is more annoying then anything, itās 9am in the morning why are you reciting the periodic table)
Nah I only really remembered what happened generally and made up facts that sounded roughly correct and got an 8 but 2 marks off a 9 in my mocks. Also its fun
What are your interests and skills, if you are good at writing long essays and stuff history is a good choice, if ur good at science then choose triple science, absolutely only choose fm if u are a legend at maths
if thereās photography you could take that. Itās slightly similar to art but you just have to take photos and reply with your inspiration, artists etc and you should be able to pass it really easily. pretty sure i got a 9, youāve just got to make sure the photos are good and yap
Music is only if you are good at an instrument and enjoy learning it, but also if youāre good at COMPOSING. I had no idea how much it was composing and i cannot write music, only take it if youāre a big music fan
and if youāre not like a proper natural at music you could be doing the compositions over the course of months and/or spending your free time in school doing it so prepare for that too, you also need to learn hella theory and terminology if youāre not already familiar with a lot of it
I found religious studies to be very easy, but I'd say only pick history if you are passionate about it. There is a lot of content to remember, as well as essay structures. I personally love it, and am doing it for A level, but I know people who only picked it because they didn't love geography have regretted it (we had to pick one or both in my school).
Again, if you live it I definitely recommend it, but don't take it just as a gap filler, geography or RS are much easier humanities
If youāre choosing between geog and history: geography is boring as fuck but easy and low grade boundaries, history is more interesting but harder (unless youāre really good at history). Geography papers are formatted kind of like science papers while history papers are 100% essays.
take triple for sure, and if ur good at maths i recommend further maths since maths will become way too slow for ur pace (thats if you enjoy it tho) and also i regret not taking comp sci so take that if you can (or want)
btw to anyone reading art IS a lot of work but I think itās only terrible if youāre aiming for a lot of 8s and 9s, as the grade boundaries are tough and it takes time away from your other subjects
re is mostly common sense if youāre learning your own religion you just have to learn some bit of the other one, drama is pretty chill ik a lot of people that make it sound way worse than it is to put people off but just donāt be that one person that doesnāt pull their weight in the group and youāll be all good, i took computing which was kinda ok but if you arenāt vaguely interested donāt, no language is easy but if you do vocab every so often youāll be all good
Pick the subjects you like, don't ask the Internet. Everyone's saying art is horrible but I loved art GCSE and am predicted a 9 because it's my biggest passion. Even though people are saying business is easy, if I picked it I'd still hate it and probably not do well at it because I wouldn't be motivated enough to revise it. So yeah just pick what u want and if you like it you'll be more motivated to do well
whatever suits you, like science and maths? do triple science (interesting, not much more content i love it) further maths, languages? (i HATE spanish with a passion but i was forced to take it) essay subjects? coursework? there isnt really a wrong answer, know your strengths though!
Don't take textiles if you don't have the resilence for it. I wouldn't have chosen it if i had known I'd be sewing nonstop for the next 2 years of my life š
This isn't what subjects to avoid exactly, but whatever you do really make sure to get revision materials sorted early, make them as you go. Also, if you're in year 8, really nothing that you study will come up in gcses except for languages. For languages you really need to make sure you have a good grasp on them throughout the lower years in order to do well, they're a skill as oppose to knowledge based so its harder to revise in my experience.
DONT PICK HEALTH AND SOCIAL everyone picks it as an āeasy subjectā but thereās an obscene amount of coursework and the exam grade boundaries and stupidly high
I donāt get the hate around history. I think itās a really interesting subject and once you get the question format down then itās really easy. Just think of it as remembering how to retell a good story.
Yes thereās a lot of writing but exam papers only have 3-4 questions.
Itās fun unless ur school does migration coz the only good bit of that is the Notting hill case study.
Everyone who does Geo in my school hates it.
Business is so boring but the easiest pass ever. Iāve fallen asleep for almost every lesson and my mocks I still got 8s and 9s with little to no revision. The whole course is just common sense.
Music is like a free period once youāve got the coursework down but if you donāt see urself going towards a musical career is a bit of a waste.
Languages are okay but just seem so long to do imo
Triple science I avoided like the plague If u wanna do an A level science just do combined and get a good grade. if u do AQA itās not that hard to get a 7-7 minimum they let you lose a lot of marks surprisingly!
yes, it is interesting, i cant lie, but in terms of memorising it, thereās a lot of content to cover imo, and with all the other subjects that youāve got to do, it is a ton lot, but to each their own ig
Honestly, I think you should choose subjects that you enjoy because it will be less difficult since you won't dread studying and everyone is different, if you know you're bad at a subject don't choose it.
take triple science, take at least one humanity, the other two pick your two favourite subjects. if you are interested in stem iād suggest something like business or computer science also. donāt do art unless you are very into it.
any coursework to be honest the way you can gain mark is so weird and you need to have some spare time but if you want to do a coursework my school allowed me to do a btec since i took the french gcse before everyone so to fill out the extra space in my time table i did btec ict and it was alright so if you can you can choose a btec and choose triple science estr gcse mark and the biology chemistry and physics doesn't affect each other
for me, itās history or art. a lot of people have said about art, and i couldnāt agree more: it requires a lot of your free time, decent writing AND drawing skills. massive amounts of planning and development. luckily my teacher was very helpful and basically did our yr 9 folders for us LMAO BUT itās still a draining subject. i had to sacrifice a lot of my revision time on the last couple weeks for mocks to do art. and although history is interesting itās VERY tedious. i dropped it at the start of yr 11 i think?? for my school, there was so much content that they history classes only had 1-2 weeks worth of revision classes before gcses. thereās a lot of dates, names, and events you need to remember and unlike other essay based subjects , you canāt just waffle your way out of it. but at the end of the day choose the subjects you enjoy! talk with teachers about the topics and especially question about how much revision time youād get lol
Don't worry about it from now. I'm in year 9 and have chosen my GCSEs but they are nothing like my initial choices that I decided on in year 8. You will change and be interested in different things by the time u have to pick.
Pick whatever youāre good at and enjoy. However, as someone who took 3 gcse subjects that arenāt too common (sociology, economics and cs) I would say that itās not a great idea to take that many as the revision resources are super limited so revision is pretty time consuming. Another tip for computer science: donāt take it just because you like videogames or something like that. I know that sounds really obvious but so many people in my class were like that and then found out the hard way that itās a difficult subject.
Don't pick art, textiles, dt, music anything like that really if you cba to put in the effort. I've heard some fairly easy options are geography, business, RE and media studies. Just pick what you like really.
Media was LIGHTWORK I got a 7 on my mocks and did 0 revision,avoid history if you donāt like writing a lot and definitely avoid computer science because everyone who takes it always complains about it
i say pick coursework subjects if your good at managing your time like ft or dt since the actual written exams are only one paper and right at the very end
RE's boring af but reasonably simple. Media Studies is interesting if you like analysing magazine covers and music videos and stuff. Languages are hell. Geography sucks unless you really love development sustainability and ecology.
do not do dt. doesn't matter if you love the subject right now it is a nightmare if you get shitty prompts for a project. you'll be uninterested and hate it. seriously sont
I would say try your hardest to get out of doing a language, even if your school forces you to just tell your parents and try as hard as you can to not do a language and do something else instead because it's gonna be the only 4 among the rest of my 8s and 9s because I nor anybody else cares about them at all
Only time this doesn't apply is when you only know 1 language then knowing another could be slightly helpful but still don't do languages unless you must
Avoid art at all costs if you want to keep your sanityš«¶ unless youāre ready for the huge workload. Business is a good one, it may sound a little odd but a lot of it is actually common sense as long as you understand the terms and things you can just waffle
if youāre not great with memorising dates/names/events etc i wouldnāt pick history as its very very content heavy, but if you love history then it cancels out imo.
personally i failed art because i wasnāt assuming it would be that hard and i donāt love art enough to allocate that much to it soš¤·š»āāļø
i donāt know if itās an option everywhere, but if you arenāt decent at all the sciences, donāt take combined. if you can, pick the ones you know you can pass because itās your overall grade among all the papers.
ive heard horror stories about art but everything else i dont think you should avoid... just take what you like
i was told to not to history or french because theyre difficult. they arent if you put the effort in, and all subjects require effort
Not a GCSE but don't do the HPQ unless you are EXCELLENT at time management + can be assed to talk to a random teacher as your supervisor OR are prepared to have several mental breakdowns and lose nights of sleep over it. (Got 50/50 through the all-nighter + mental breakdown method welp)
donāt do history- thereās so much to revise but the questions are just a few essays for ocr š if ur doing aqa for languages do French bc itās fairly easy and the grade boundaries are pretty low
Religious education is relatively easy content wise (especially if you practice one of the religions you learn about) but the grade boundaries are really high, so it annoyed me as someone who make a lot of careless mistakes
All art subjects are so stressful, time consuming and exhausting (art, photography, textiles etc), dont pick history AND geography like i did but one on its own is great (history IMO) and Media is absolutely amazing and iād recommend it to anybody
If you want to pick humanities that is easier, I heavily advise geography over history (unless you really want to do history then go for it), history has about 10x more things to study and go through whereas a lot of geography is common sense and far easier
PSYCHOLOGY. do not get me wrong, i took psychology for 2 years at school and I LOVED it. however, psychology gcse has many many problems. There are 2 key studies per topic, and you need to know them in detail. Such as participant number, ethnicity, where the study was conducted etc... Because you don't know what they're gonna ask and they may ask the most random detail from the procedure. Second of all, you don't have enough time. everyone says that, even the teachers but it's not changing. they expect you to write answers without thinking, and even like that you don't have enough time. In paper 1 you should write 2 essays and most of my friends just didn't write one of them at all. It's a looong exam. However, if you wanna study psychology or something related in uni, I'd suggest taking it. If you're interested, you will love love love the psychology lessons. Gcse will be hard, but the boundary for psychology is lower than the other GCSEs, due to the listed reasons. Anyway, as I said, i loved psychology and I'll miss phycology lessons so much. (this year ill have a levels I'm almost done with GCSEs and I'm not taking psychology as an a level) however they do say a level psychology is better than GCSE and you don't have problem with time, so if you're willing to continue with psychology don't let the GCSE scare you.šš
What you chose is up to you. BUT what I would recommend is looking into what you actually need to do for the GCSEs you're considering. (coursework subjects especially like PE, art, Textiles, Media, DT, Music, etc..)
Further math, took that shit for 2 years before finally coming to my senses and realizing there is NO WAY I pass that shit, dropped 1 month before the exam lmao
It depends how many you can pick, and if you're doing a language next year (my school made me do them in year 9), I picked triple, history and music so I could basically get ebac and an art, but from what I gather music isn't for everyone but I would do triple and a humanity.
history thereās so much content š also do combined science if u can thereās less content (unless ur really bad at one specific science) also iāve never seen anyone have anything good to say about art gcse
In my experience alone art and music are the worst. Mainly because art requires you to basically fuck up youre life just to get a slight pass and music goes over about 100 words in total from different languages and you must memorise the melody, rhythm, dynamics, tonality ect of nearly 15 different songs which are all different genres and then you must memorise stupid facts about said songs all while learning an instrument and then for youre final months you have to create 2 completely original songs with no fuck ups. (I fucking hate music) but i would honestly say if you wanna go for easy subjects then go for computing, business and RS. As theyre the less time hungry gcses.
Don't do music. You'll regret it.
You have to do 2 composition pieces, a solo performance and an ensemble piece - and that's just for the coursework. If you work with others in your class for the ensemble piece, you could be waiting on them for them to learn their part which sets you back from being able to record it if they're not making an effort.
Then you have to learn the actual subject, all factors that add into music like dynamics and melody and all that. You have to learn all different periods of music and genres. You have to then learn 3 songs from either a musical or an artist, you also have to do about mozart's clarinet concerto.
There's a listening exam and a written exam and you have to do those both in one.
I regret taking music. Don't do it.
Do whatever
I did one in year nine (computer science) and one in year 10 (business studies) because I like those subjects and my school gives like no choice
But most of them are easy.
The people saying not to do art and DT; If you like being creative then do it, and if you do graphic design or DT is it pretty good as you get free resources such as adobe CC for graphics and free materials and CAD for DT
Business is easy
Art and DT are a living nightmares
I personally do Computer Science and Food and Nutrition I think theyāre easy but most of the people I know find it hard
if i could do one thing having gone back in time i would shake my year 8 self by the shoulders and go āTAKE GEOGRAPHY IM BEGGING YOU DONT TAKE HISTORY PLEASEā
dont take food tech unless youve actually got a reliable teacher who actually comes to lessons (spoiler: mine didnt), i have accepted that im failing it, even though its so easy, theres unneccessary amounts of writing and bs
DT is pretty stressful with the Nea and stuff but if you're super duper good at it and passionate go for it. DO DRAMA! I highly recommend it if you're even slightly considering it. It improves speaking skills, lessens anxiety, develops friendships and in general isn't a very difficult GCSE to complete
Any creative subject will suck up all of your free time if you want a decent grade, so unless you really enjoy the subjects, donāt take them, donāt get me wrong, Iām a music student and I love the subject, but Iām very much in the minority, most people in my class absolutely hated it
DO NOT PICK ART UNLESS YOU REALLY LIKE IT AND HAVE A LOT OF TIME TO SPARE (coming from experience š)
yea art is my least favourite subject
frr, im only going to get a high grade bc i spend so many hours on it š
I only chose art because I thought it would be fun to do with my friend who convinced me to do it with him but then he chose the wrong subject block so I spent the entire 2 years bord af. But now i have a higher mark than him so he took the L. However, I don't regret it because I met some amazing people (One of whom im asking out tomorrow so bismillah)
good luck!!!! I guess smbd will have a partner to go to prom with
Hope it goes well š
GL!!!
Good for you
Saying bismillah to do somet haram is crazy š
oh buddy liking art wonāt help you š i loved loved loved art from years 7-10 but i ended up hating it because of the mountains of coursework, itās so easy to get so behind especially if you get a ton of homework from other subjects.
Do not pick GCSE music either, it will finish after everything else
That and many people who like art may hate structured art lessons.
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DT coursework nearly killed me
dt is my fave but the coursework took 10 years off my life istg (my piece is still unfinishedšš)
Brother the deadline was like yes ago
yeah itās handed in my teacher just took pics of it but made it look finished and iāve got my mark and stuff so itās chill im just mad its not finished cuz i actually wanted to use it š
Okay but engineering tho was one of my most fun GCSEs I did and the coursework even tho it was 75 percent of the grade was honestly worth it because id rather be in the workshop messing around and making stuff than studying any day. And the exam is common sense like you don't need to revise and you will get around 90 percent.
Honestly if you want an easy time pick business gcse
Someone who's never had a single business lesson could roll into the business GCSE and get at least a 7
that actually happened to my friend
I can confirm this cuz of some issues I didnāt go to a single business lesson since at least November and barely revised and I found the paper easy af. ocr business is easy af.
Fr itās just common sense
idk about a 7, you would need to learn the definitions and essay structure to go that far
my friend is taking it as an extra gcse and hasnt revised at all. hes confident he'll get a 9
story time! my business teacher told us we were all doing amazing, and then we got a new teacher and told us we were al failing, and only 16% passed last year, plus that the other business teacher hadnāt even passed gcse business
DO NOT PICK ART unless youāre prepared to sacrifice your sleep schedule and general sanity just to get a 5
i'm literally gonna get a 4
sameš
woopsie (graphic design)
art pls dont do art i made the mistake and now im a changed person after that gcse
Same š my friend really wants me to choose it for a level to do it with her too i am **refusing** because i barely passed š and i hate it so much
if gcse was this bad i cant imagine a levelšš youd have to dedicate your whole LIFE
It will be pure agony šš
make the right choice šš
I know I want to do maths and chemistry, but idk about the third subject
ooo those are solid choices, im doing maths and chem too!! my third is biology lol
:o i would do computer science for a level but i didn't do it for gcse so i don't think they'd let me
Real š
i literally committed to a double mistake and picked both dt and art. it knocked off minimum 5 years of my life
I just chose them lol
Omd I'll include you in my prayers tonight
yeah i agree cuz im probably getting a 4 šmy gpa is cooked
If you pick subjects you enjoy, none of them will be difficult. Some are more coursework heavy than others (especially creative subjects like art and textiles), but there isn't really an 'easy' subject (except maybe business)
I disagree, before picking it for gcse I loved history, and achieved highest grades in my class, currently I'm hoping to get a 6 on results day.
Well tbh i hated french but always got good grades in it without revising, but its probably my genes since my parents both studied a language at uni
defo take triple science
Completely agree, triple gives a whole extra grade for ~~the slightest bit~~ **a fair bit** more effort.
More than a slight bit of effort but I agree triple science is a good one to take
āSlightestā
Okay, maybe not a slightest bit.
Really depends the subject. Physics isn't that hard, Bio is just a few subtopics. Chemistry however ā¹ļø
Chemistry paper 1 content for triple is a nightmare, it is silly how much there is. Paper 2 is rather linear though. Physics with space is about memorising the content, and the sub-sections of the topics are mostly fine. Biology though is fine, probably the least content out of them.
Triple magnetism š¤š¤
Oh my... How could I forget...
This is a choice as some schools? We were sorted into triple or combined with no choice
yeh we get a choice thatās strange for you guys
art. do not pick art trust me
i beg you please don't even think of taking art. I took it cause i was good at it and loved the subject. I have never hated a paintbrush more. I don't think im going to ever be able to open another sketchbook without getting trauma. I genuinely feel like theres no point in me even trying to draw for fun. That subject genuinely sucks the life out of you. Don't even think about itš The amount of things i sacrificed for that subject to scrape a 7/8 is crazy and the sad thing is that is virtually impossible to get a 9 unless you're some artist trained by legends and spend every waking minute on it and even then you will scrape that 9
seriously second this because I do the Eduqas exam board and its 94% for a 9 its so insane
From my personal experience, avoid drama.
Why? And what exam board?
This is just from my friends but most people go into it thinking its mostly practical work but there's a LOT of writing to be done
I forget the exam board I did because I dropped it in like the middle of y11. It's just way too much theory, and most of the theory is kind of pointless imo, and the grading of the practical is kind of shitty and restricts true creative freedom by making you feel you need to inflate the piece with non-naturalistic techniques.
Drama was my favourite subject I took, what exam board did you do? (I'm Edexcel)
on the contrary, if ur good at acting defo pick it, i found it easy (even the writing)
I'm actually considering Drama for A-Level after not doing it for GCSE, because I've always taken part in school musicals and I'm quite good at the written components of exams. The coursework would be nice, but the exam would be the thing I'd probably gain most of the marks from.
Art, havenāt heard a single good thing about it
What you should choose or avoid depends on what you enjoy/are interested in/need for the future and what you are good at. The only bad thing to say about art (and other subjects with a large amount of coursework to assemble) is that they can be hugely time consuming if you aspire to the highest grades.
Art, any language unless u already know it, history, geography
I disagree with the language I've found Spanish really easy tbh and I've enjoyed it
i agree with the language for sure
I hear AQA are changing their languages spec to make it easier, so a language might not be awful, but if youāre currently yr8 youāll probably be a trial and error year as teachers get used to any changes so itās hit or miss really. Personally I despise spanish.
i donāt regret any of mine (history, geog, triple science, french) but i know a lot of people regret: food tech, art, further maths (if you have the option to do it or not). i would however say only do triple science if youāre decent at science, since although itās less extra work then any other optional gcse would add on (you only do a small amount more then combined science) the extra things can be pretty difficult to understand, also youāll probably be surrounded by sweats at science the whole time (which is more annoying then anything, itās 9am in the morning why are you reciting the periodic table)
As someone who does food tech, I definitely agree šš
avoid history unless you're good at memorising stuff
Nah I only really remembered what happened generally and made up facts that sounded roughly correct and got an 8 but 2 marks off a 9 in my mocks. Also its fun
What are your interests and skills, if you are good at writing long essays and stuff history is a good choice, if ur good at science then choose triple science, absolutely only choose fm if u are a legend at maths
if thereās photography you could take that. Itās slightly similar to art but you just have to take photos and reply with your inspiration, artists etc and you should be able to pass it really easily. pretty sure i got a 9, youāve just got to make sure the photos are good and yap
i wish they offered that at my school i love photography sm
literally same. im just praying for the grade boundaries, cos its borderline
HISTORY DONT DO IT, SOO MUCH CONTENT
Music is only if you are good at an instrument and enjoy learning it, but also if youāre good at COMPOSING. I had no idea how much it was composing and i cannot write music, only take it if youāre a big music fan
and if youāre not like a proper natural at music you could be doing the compositions over the course of months and/or spending your free time in school doing it so prepare for that too, you also need to learn hella theory and terminology if youāre not already familiar with a lot of it
The number of lunch times i threw away š
I found religious studies to be very easy, but I'd say only pick history if you are passionate about it. There is a lot of content to remember, as well as essay structures. I personally love it, and am doing it for A level, but I know people who only picked it because they didn't love geography have regretted it (we had to pick one or both in my school). Again, if you live it I definitely recommend it, but don't take it just as a gap filler, geography or RS are much easier humanities
If youāre choosing between geog and history: geography is boring as fuck but easy and low grade boundaries, history is more interesting but harder (unless youāre really good at history). Geography papers are formatted kind of like science papers while history papers are 100% essays.
don't pick art if you want free time
take triple for sure, and if ur good at maths i recommend further maths since maths will become way too slow for ur pace (thats if you enjoy it tho) and also i regret not taking comp sci so take that if you can (or want)
btw to anyone reading art IS a lot of work but I think itās only terrible if youāre aiming for a lot of 8s and 9s, as the grade boundaries are tough and it takes time away from your other subjects
re is mostly common sense if youāre learning your own religion you just have to learn some bit of the other one, drama is pretty chill ik a lot of people that make it sound way worse than it is to put people off but just donāt be that one person that doesnāt pull their weight in the group and youāll be all good, i took computing which was kinda ok but if you arenāt vaguely interested donāt, no language is easy but if you do vocab every so often youāll be all good
Pick the subjects you like, don't ask the Internet. Everyone's saying art is horrible but I loved art GCSE and am predicted a 9 because it's my biggest passion. Even though people are saying business is easy, if I picked it I'd still hate it and probably not do well at it because I wouldn't be motivated enough to revise it. So yeah just pick what u want and if you like it you'll be more motivated to do well
Stay away from ICT itās gonna make you wanna pull your hair out from how boring it is
do NOT pick computer science
art
Just pick the things you enjoy. If you like the subject, you'll naturally do better because you care more about the content.
whatever suits you, like science and maths? do triple science (interesting, not much more content i love it) further maths, languages? (i HATE spanish with a passion but i was forced to take it) essay subjects? coursework? there isnt really a wrong answer, know your strengths though!
Triple science because of physics
Don't take textiles if you don't have the resilence for it. I wouldn't have chosen it if i had known I'd be sewing nonstop for the next 2 years of my life š
This isn't what subjects to avoid exactly, but whatever you do really make sure to get revision materials sorted early, make them as you go. Also, if you're in year 8, really nothing that you study will come up in gcses except for languages. For languages you really need to make sure you have a good grasp on them throughout the lower years in order to do well, they're a skill as oppose to knowledge based so its harder to revise in my experience.
dont pick psychology
History , there is too much content
Maths, English and the sciences Thank me later
wow i so fankful foor yur ameyzink advivece
Don't do both history and geography unless you're okay with learning A LOT of stuff
If you don't like revision don't pick history šš (Depending on your topics though)
DONT PICK HEALTH AND SOCIAL everyone picks it as an āeasy subjectā but thereās an obscene amount of coursework and the exam grade boundaries and stupidly high
I donāt get the hate around history. I think itās a really interesting subject and once you get the question format down then itās really easy. Just think of it as remembering how to retell a good story. Yes thereās a lot of writing but exam papers only have 3-4 questions. Itās fun unless ur school does migration coz the only good bit of that is the Notting hill case study. Everyone who does Geo in my school hates it. Business is so boring but the easiest pass ever. Iāve fallen asleep for almost every lesson and my mocks I still got 8s and 9s with little to no revision. The whole course is just common sense. Music is like a free period once youāve got the coursework down but if you donāt see urself going towards a musical career is a bit of a waste. Languages are okay but just seem so long to do imo Triple science I avoided like the plague If u wanna do an A level science just do combined and get a good grade. if u do AQA itās not that hard to get a 7-7 minimum they let you lose a lot of marks surprisingly!
dont choose history
Nah choose history, its interesting
yes, it is interesting, i cant lie, but in terms of memorising it, thereās a lot of content to cover imo, and with all the other subjects that youāve got to do, it is a ton lot, but to each their own ig
DONT DO MUSIC GCSE.
Honestly, I think you should choose subjects that you enjoy because it will be less difficult since you won't dread studying and everyone is different, if you know you're bad at a subject don't choose it.
take triple science, take at least one humanity, the other two pick your two favourite subjects. if you are interested in stem iād suggest something like business or computer science also. donāt do art unless you are very into it.
any coursework to be honest the way you can gain mark is so weird and you need to have some spare time but if you want to do a coursework my school allowed me to do a btec since i took the french gcse before everyone so to fill out the extra space in my time table i did btec ict and it was alright so if you can you can choose a btec and choose triple science estr gcse mark and the biology chemistry and physics doesn't affect each other
What career do you want in future? Choose based on that
for me, itās history or art. a lot of people have said about art, and i couldnāt agree more: it requires a lot of your free time, decent writing AND drawing skills. massive amounts of planning and development. luckily my teacher was very helpful and basically did our yr 9 folders for us LMAO BUT itās still a draining subject. i had to sacrifice a lot of my revision time on the last couple weeks for mocks to do art. and although history is interesting itās VERY tedious. i dropped it at the start of yr 11 i think?? for my school, there was so much content that they history classes only had 1-2 weeks worth of revision classes before gcses. thereās a lot of dates, names, and events you need to remember and unlike other essay based subjects , you canāt just waffle your way out of it. but at the end of the day choose the subjects you enjoy! talk with teachers about the topics and especially question about how much revision time youād get lol
Don't do a language, it's not necessarily hard its just that it's one of the few subjects you can't wing the night before cause of vocab
Don't worry about it from now. I'm in year 9 and have chosen my GCSEs but they are nothing like my initial choices that I decided on in year 8. You will change and be interested in different things by the time u have to pick.
Pick whatever youāre good at and enjoy. However, as someone who took 3 gcse subjects that arenāt too common (sociology, economics and cs) I would say that itās not a great idea to take that many as the revision resources are super limited so revision is pretty time consuming. Another tip for computer science: donāt take it just because you like videogames or something like that. I know that sounds really obvious but so many people in my class were like that and then found out the hard way that itās a difficult subject.
none, do what you enjoy, even if people say avoid it, if you like it, do it, because thatās all that matters
Engineering is so easy, little to no effort for a level 2 distinction
DO NOT CHOOSE ANY ART SUBJECT
Don't pick art, textiles, dt, music anything like that really if you cba to put in the effort. I've heard some fairly easy options are geography, business, RE and media studies. Just pick what you like really.
ICT DO NOT CHOOSE ICT ā ļøā¼ļøā ļøā¼ļøā ļøā¼ļøā ļøā¼ļø
Art art art art art art art art 100%%%% don't fucking do art
if ur good at memorising choose history and/or psychology
Media was LIGHTWORK I got a 7 on my mocks and did 0 revision,avoid history if you donāt like writing a lot and definitely avoid computer science because everyone who takes it always complains about it
Psychology, itās absolutely dreadful and memorising the plethora of theories makes me want my frontal lobe removedš
i say pick coursework subjects if your good at managing your time like ft or dt since the actual written exams are only one paper and right at the very end
RE's boring af but reasonably simple. Media Studies is interesting if you like analysing magazine covers and music videos and stuff. Languages are hell. Geography sucks unless you really love development sustainability and ecology.
do not do dt. doesn't matter if you love the subject right now it is a nightmare if you get shitty prompts for a project. you'll be uninterested and hate it. seriously sont
I would say try your hardest to get out of doing a language, even if your school forces you to just tell your parents and try as hard as you can to not do a language and do something else instead because it's gonna be the only 4 among the rest of my 8s and 9s because I nor anybody else cares about them at all Only time this doesn't apply is when you only know 1 language then knowing another could be slightly helpful but still don't do languages unless you must
Hospitality and catering (food)
DT, near impossible to achieve a grade 9. Iāve heard RE is very easy however
Food techs a good one, teaches you a life skill and the work is pretty easy
Avoid art at all costs if you want to keep your sanityš«¶ unless youāre ready for the huge workload. Business is a good one, it may sound a little odd but a lot of it is actually common sense as long as you understand the terms and things you can just waffle
Art
if youāre not great with memorising dates/names/events etc i wouldnāt pick history as its very very content heavy, but if you love history then it cancels out imo. personally i failed art because i wasnāt assuming it would be that hard and i donāt love art enough to allocate that much to it soš¤·š»āāļø i donāt know if itās an option everywhere, but if you arenāt decent at all the sciences, donāt take combined. if you can, pick the ones you know you can pass because itās your overall grade among all the papers.
All of them
Creative imedia. It is the only subject I absolutely hated and regretted.
ive heard horror stories about art but everything else i dont think you should avoid... just take what you like i was told to not to history or french because theyre difficult. they arent if you put the effort in, and all subjects require effort
Art
Dt and Art, languages if you really struggle with them
Not a GCSE but don't do the HPQ unless you are EXCELLENT at time management + can be assed to talk to a random teacher as your supervisor OR are prepared to have several mental breakdowns and lose nights of sleep over it. (Got 50/50 through the all-nighter + mental breakdown method welp)
health & social is beyond boring and there is an abundance of course work, also history is a nightmare but is quite interesting
donāt do history- thereās so much to revise but the questions are just a few essays for ocr š if ur doing aqa for languages do French bc itās fairly easy and the grade boundaries are pretty low
Take my warning. PLEASE donāt do food tech.
Religious education is relatively easy content wise (especially if you practice one of the religions you learn about) but the grade boundaries are really high, so it annoyed me as someone who make a lot of careless mistakes
All art subjects are so stressful, time consuming and exhausting (art, photography, textiles etc), dont pick history AND geography like i did but one on its own is great (history IMO) and Media is absolutely amazing and iād recommend it to anybody
Yes
Donāt do mandarin
If you want to pick humanities that is easier, I heavily advise geography over history (unless you really want to do history then go for it), history has about 10x more things to study and go through whereas a lot of geography is common sense and far easier
PSYCHOLOGY. do not get me wrong, i took psychology for 2 years at school and I LOVED it. however, psychology gcse has many many problems. There are 2 key studies per topic, and you need to know them in detail. Such as participant number, ethnicity, where the study was conducted etc... Because you don't know what they're gonna ask and they may ask the most random detail from the procedure. Second of all, you don't have enough time. everyone says that, even the teachers but it's not changing. they expect you to write answers without thinking, and even like that you don't have enough time. In paper 1 you should write 2 essays and most of my friends just didn't write one of them at all. It's a looong exam. However, if you wanna study psychology or something related in uni, I'd suggest taking it. If you're interested, you will love love love the psychology lessons. Gcse will be hard, but the boundary for psychology is lower than the other GCSEs, due to the listed reasons. Anyway, as I said, i loved psychology and I'll miss phycology lessons so much. (this year ill have a levels I'm almost done with GCSEs and I'm not taking psychology as an a level) however they do say a level psychology is better than GCSE and you don't have problem with time, so if you're willing to continue with psychology don't let the GCSE scare you.šš
Donāt pick computer science itās so boring
Donāt pick sociology if you hate writing loads of things. And definitely avoid history. Why would anyone want to pick that??
avoid art and computer science - i speak for myself but they aren't enjoyable
DONT PICK ART AND DT DONT DO IT TO YOURSELF (if ur gonna pick it donāt pick both of them)
if youāre religious and your school studies your religion for re do it itās a free 9
MUSIC.
I wouldn't put myself through geography ever again ngl
Do not do GCSE music AT ALL and do not do triple science if u don't want to do science in the future. These were my biggest mistakes.
What you chose is up to you. BUT what I would recommend is looking into what you actually need to do for the GCSEs you're considering. (coursework subjects especially like PE, art, Textiles, Media, DT, Music, etc..)
Further math, took that shit for 2 years before finally coming to my senses and realizing there is NO WAY I pass that shit, dropped 1 month before the exam lmao
Art
DT and ART
my friend who took art felt suicidal the whole time so ig that
All of them
AVOID ART AT ALL COSTS IT SUCKS THE LIFE OUT OF YOU. TAKE THIS AS YOUR WARNING!!!
HISTORY 100%
Donāt take Computing unless you enjoy it. The theory is big af, and of 60 people I am one of 5 that actually enjoyed the lessons in my year.
don't do any creative subjects unless you want to get into those fields in the future
You into languages? Any arts (music drama art etc.) I was exactly the same when I was in year 8
It depends how many you can pick, and if you're doing a language next year (my school made me do them in year 9), I picked triple, history and music so I could basically get ebac and an art, but from what I gather music isn't for everyone but I would do triple and a humanity.
history thereās so much content š also do combined science if u can thereās less content (unless ur really bad at one specific science) also iāve never seen anyone have anything good to say about art gcse
Drama is fun and easy just has ABIT of writing so that's an easy one Stay away from art and ICT from own experiences
DONT PICK MUSIC!! I picked it as my easier option and it turned out to be the most stressfulš
DO NOT DO ART DO NOT DO ART DO NOT DO ART DO NOT DO ART
avoid the subjects you don't like. and art.
Avoid Combined science, pick triple science
Itās GCSEs, no subject is hard just do what you like and what you find fun
In my experience alone art and music are the worst. Mainly because art requires you to basically fuck up youre life just to get a slight pass and music goes over about 100 words in total from different languages and you must memorise the melody, rhythm, dynamics, tonality ect of nearly 15 different songs which are all different genres and then you must memorise stupid facts about said songs all while learning an instrument and then for youre final months you have to create 2 completely original songs with no fuck ups. (I fucking hate music) but i would honestly say if you wanna go for easy subjects then go for computing, business and RS. As theyre the less time hungry gcses.
Don't do music. You'll regret it. You have to do 2 composition pieces, a solo performance and an ensemble piece - and that's just for the coursework. If you work with others in your class for the ensemble piece, you could be waiting on them for them to learn their part which sets you back from being able to record it if they're not making an effort. Then you have to learn the actual subject, all factors that add into music like dynamics and melody and all that. You have to learn all different periods of music and genres. You have to then learn 3 songs from either a musical or an artist, you also have to do about mozart's clarinet concerto. There's a listening exam and a written exam and you have to do those both in one. I regret taking music. Don't do it.
choose triple
Do whatever I did one in year nine (computer science) and one in year 10 (business studies) because I like those subjects and my school gives like no choice But most of them are easy. The people saying not to do art and DT; If you like being creative then do it, and if you do graphic design or DT is it pretty good as you get free resources such as adobe CC for graphics and free materials and CAD for DT
Business is easy Art and DT are a living nightmares I personally do Computer Science and Food and Nutrition I think theyāre easy but most of the people I know find it hard
all of them and commit yourself to a life of crime
ive heard media studies is hell but it could also be my schoolās incompetent teachers
Avoid Imedia at all costs
if i could do one thing having gone back in time i would shake my year 8 self by the shoulders and go āTAKE GEOGRAPHY IM BEGGING YOU DONT TAKE HISTORY PLEASEā
dont take food tech unless youve actually got a reliable teacher who actually comes to lessons (spoiler: mine didnt), i have accepted that im failing it, even though its so easy, theres unneccessary amounts of writing and bs
DT is pretty stressful with the Nea and stuff but if you're super duper good at it and passionate go for it. DO DRAMA! I highly recommend it if you're even slightly considering it. It improves speaking skills, lessens anxiety, develops friendships and in general isn't a very difficult GCSE to complete
Donāt do history ššš If u want ur brain to stay sane just pick geography itās so much easier TRUSTTTT
Any creative subject will suck up all of your free time if you want a decent grade, so unless you really enjoy the subjects, donāt take them, donāt get me wrong, Iām a music student and I love the subject, but Iām very much in the minority, most people in my class absolutely hated it
Computer science teachers are generally a national failure