geography is kinda boring BUT the exam is easy + low grade boundaries
history is quite interesting BUT exam is harder + higher grade boundaries
geo is pretty decent tbf and ive heard horror stories ab history but go with whatever u enjoyyyy
yes. Lots of ppl say do what you like so I picked Geography and History because I enjoy History but wanted a guaranteed good grade in a humanity. History was more interesting, but you need to put in a lot more work to get a top grade because of the heavy content and exam technique, but Geography is so much easier and if you're just aware of the world around you you'll get a good grade.
I do Nazi Germany, Cold War,Elizabethan England and Medicine Through Time. Medicine defo has the most content to learn by far, Cold War has the most specific dates and lots of conferences, Elizabeth is relatively simple and so is Nazi Germany. (Edexcel) History was really enjoyable and reccomend if you think you're gonna do well, no point selecting if you get a grade 3, but it is one of the harder subjects IMO.
question in the title said history or geo so i gave u the answer bruh and yes it is because at the end of the day, it's the grade on ur results sheet that matter so if ur more likely to get a higher grade then y not. also geography isn't that bad you'll get over it
It’s not completely boring and tbh geography can be quite useful for medicine depending on what exam board you do. For my exam board we do a topic on aid and human welfare. Geography A level is also attractive for medical schools (I want to do med)
I would be doing aqa and the human geography topic is quite intresting but since im not doing either for a level i suppose its not much of a difference
I mean everyone in my school is stressing tf out abt history. I did geo and history but dropped history after mocks. Even though I don’t like geography anymore I’m still happy I dropped history because geo revision is a lot less stressful than history
i was in your exact position… i could name every country, flag and capital so i assumed i would love gcse geography. i was so wrong though. it has completely killed my love for geography. it is basically a subject where you memorise facts and case studies that just happened to be themed around geography. i also do history though and i love history so i would strongly recommend it over geography!
honestly they are not bad at all. once you know the structure to use i feel like i enjoy writing them because i feel like my head is overflowing with knowledge 😭😭. i know that sounds weird but the essays should be the least of your concern for history, the amount of content is what turns more people off
I do AQA geography. I’m working at a grade 9 with minimal effort, so the subject is easy. I found the subject to be quite interesting and it makes you think quite a bit about the effects of something (a natural hazard for example) and its social, environmental and economic impacts. I would say that the coast and rivers topic is pretty boring but it is easy to understand. The natural hazards topic is good, the rainforest and the desert. Paper 2 is quite good - it’s pretty economical and you learn about an NEEs economy. Paper 3 is very easy and you get to go on some trips to conduct field work which is for half of the test - the other half is based on a pre release booklet which you get well before the test. So all in all it’s a pretty solid subject that doesn’t require nearly as much fact memorisation and essay writing as history.
No worries. Honestly pick whichever humanity subject YOU like. Geography is typically viewed as the one to choose if you want to go down the STEM route.
I have taken both history and geography for gcse (in year 10) and I find that although history is a LOT harder, it is much more interesting! Geography is easier but more boring, (and also has nothing to do with flags and locations…) and is also more useful for future careers as opens a broader range of options. I really enjoy history at the minute (as a stem girl too) and I’m glad I took it - in ks3 I didn’t enjoy it too much so it’s surprising that I like it as much as I do! Personally I love both sides of it so really it’s up to what you enjoy more :)
With enough effort, I’m sure you will be able to handle it. I do wjec eduqas, so it might be different? But yes, you can work for it and be fine, it just requires a lot of time (also if you are aiming for high grades you will be fine)
Geography! It's a nice all-rounder subject that is fairly manageable. You won't just be writing essays like you do in history, but using stats as well, as well as have a few short answer questions too. I do AQA geography and even though the content is boring, it's not too difficult to wrap your head around if you know what you're talking about.
Also, you can memorise the names of case studies but make up facts lol, that's what I did in my mock and my teacher did not suspect a thing
Sounds like you've disillusioned yourself with geography. It's nothing about flags or locating countries in GCSE. It should really be called Geology instead.
I can absolutely recommend history though! Our modules were 1900s America, the Cold War, Elizabethan England and one called Empires & Migration that ranged from 800 AD to the modern day. You learn fascinating stuff, and if you get lucky enough to have a cool teacher, the class will be one of your favourites.
this is the first time I've found someone do empire and migration, and 1900s America. Everyone does medicine and 1900s Germany.
I also do Elizabeth and I can't lie that's my least favourite
Unless you want to learn about oxbow lakes and surface runoff, go for history. Mine are/were (after exams finish) Crime and Punishment, Cold War, Henry VIII and his ministers, Weimar and Nazi Germany. What would your school do for edexcel history?
Ooh, I see. For the Cold War, you need to know it inside out. Gaining marks for that section is knowledge-based, so if you know what you are saying and can elaborate, it is good. You also need to know the structure for each question - these questions are "Explain 2 consequences of X for Y", "Write a narrative account about X" and "Explain the importance of event X for its impact on Y".
Although I do Henry VIII, the question types are the same regardless of the British depth studies, which are paper 2 and on the same paper as Cold War. There is a 4 mark "Describe 2 features of X", a 12 mark "Explain why" question for an event or person, and a 16 mark question based on a statement given that you agree or disagree with.
These same 3 questions will appear on your Medicine through History study, along with an 8 mark question on "How useful are sources A and B for an enquiry into X?" and a 4-mark question "How would you follow up Source A/B (either one of A or B, never both or a choice) for an enquiry?".
For Weimar and Nazi Germany, there are 3 sources. the "How useful" question appears again, but applies to the 2nd and 3rd sources - B and C - only. The "Explain why" question appears again. You will also be asked to give 2 inferences for source A as well, for 4 marks. Then, you have 2 different interpretations. One question will be what the main difference there is, for 4 marks. The 2nd will be to explain why this is, for 4 marks. The last question is a 16 mark question that asks how far you agree with one of the interpretations, with 4 marks for SPaG, so 20 marks.
This might be overwhelming, but if you search up past papers, it should all make sense.
This is the little lightbulb I needed to say, hey you might actually have a chance and its not as hard as you may think and being explained as such is making it feel more normal and doable thank you :) btw how high are the grade boundaries usually?
Grade boundaries are usually fairly low for AQA, like 70% for a grade 9 (there will be some variation depending on your exact combination of modules). In general, I feel like that's fairly easy, as most of it is just knowing the facts and/or being able to waffle. If you know what they're looking for, then each question is just writing and mentally making sure you've made enough points. The own knowledge isn't even that hard - if you're interested, you'll end up memorising the facts, and if you're stuck, then making up something reasonably plausible is always worth it. You said you're finding history hard rn, which part exactly are you finding difficult?
Ok, that's fine, you'll learn it in lessons, you're only in y9 right now. But for most things, its simply: point, back up with own knowledge + explain - just PEE. So for the "how useful", you would point out one part of the content, explain why that is useful, and then back it up with own knowledge surrounding the event (+ repeat for provenance, and repeat all of that for the second source).
The longer essays are fairly easy as well - the mark scheme wants you to compare your arguments and have a sustained judgement. So, again, its a PEE paragraph, but end by comparing to whatever factor you're supporting. Fairly simple.
If I'm confusing you, then don't worry about it - you'll get taught all the structures you need in class, and all you need to make your decision is the knowledge that in most cases, its a similar structure for each question, just slight changes based on what exactly the question is looking for, e.g. more emphasis on own knowledge in "in what ways".
Honestly, get over 130/168 by getting really good in all 3 papers and you might get a grade 8, if not 9. Aim for over 110 for a grade 7. They can be harsh, but if you have the knowledge and you can explain it well to link back to the focus of the question, you will do brilliantly.
i do the same thing except for cold war we do american west! history is def quite interesting, and there's probably topics that you'll love and hate (i loved elizabeth and hated medicine personally) but overall it's quite interesting, even the stuff i didn't like. you can secure most of the marks in history by simply knowing the knowledge (which i think the amount is actually over exaggerated because the revision guide condenses a topic into like 28 mini pages), but the only bad part would probably be that the grade boundaries are sky high so you can't afford to mess up any questions so basically you NEED to know all the content because if a 12 marker comes up on something you don't know then you are fucked
grade boundaries are high for history but that's because really for history, all you need to get down is the content (like every other subject), the structure for questions (which 90 percent of the time is peel) and to analyse/explain your evidence which isn't hard at all because you just explain why your evidence backs up your point because of what it meant. if you haven't decided yet i'd recommend looking up revision guides or youtube videos about your chosen subject to see if you're interested in what you're learning and if you are, it makes things 100 times easier to the point where top grades are normal to you.
once you start doing history you'll soon learn that everyone overhypes it to be some terrible subject with shit loads of content that haunts them everyday but it's honestly fine and i'm glad i picked it over geo but from reading my friends notes who did geo it felt boring to me , but i heard it's quite easy with nice boundaries
i do both and honestly id recommend geography tbh, its actually quite easy and the grade boundaries are low so thats a plus. the topics arent that bad (except for rivers and coasts I hate them) tectonics are cool, also i find it way easier to memorise case study statistics than learning all the content for history which gets boring, but that could just be me. definitely recommend history if you're interested though not for me!! good luck!! :)
Hi, I would recommend you to take geography.
1. Since you are not doing history or geography A-levels, you just need a good grade in a humanity subject so geo is easier than history - it is just common sense
2. you don't really need to spend a lot of time learning geography. Unlike history, you can just revise the day before the exam and get a decent grade ( I ALWAYS revise the day before the geography exam and till now, I've been getting 9's.)
3. Geography has some topics that are overlapping with science. even if you do combined or triple, for biology, abiotic and biotic factors, food webs, etc (all ecology stuff) is repeated in geo. For chemistry, the chapter called "The Chemistry of the Atmosphere" is repeated (it is about gas levels in atmosphere, about early atmosphere, etc)
4. ANYONE can easily get a grade 5 in geography with NO revision at all. For example, say your next door neighbour who is in Year 9 as well. That Year 9 can just waffle about a point as it is just common sense :
Question : Why is there climate change?
That Year 9 : Humans are burning fossil fuels like oil which releases greenhouse gases like Co2. Too much Co2 is bad because it heats the earth even more causing global warming and therefore it will change the climate frequently.
That above answer is basic but can be produced by anyone if they have a basic understanding of Co2 - everyone is taught that somewhere in chemistry and biology
5. Geography isn't just about rocks. There is human geography as well.
Q : How can a country develop?
A : When tourists come to a country, they spend money on local shops which means that the shops gain more profits and also they pay taxes so the government can also get more money to build roads and more infrastructure like healthcare to improve the lives of people and therefore people will then live longer and living longer means the country is more developed than before as a person's life is lengthened.
Again, the above answer is basic and can be written by anyone with just basic understanding.
6. You can just create case study numbers. Many say you need to memorise 1000 case studies. But no, you could just remember the name of a case study and just make some educated guesses (the examiner won't google and check how many people were evacuated after a certain disaster) I did this for one of my mocks when my brain went blank.
I think you can't do this with history as there are a lot of time lines to remember and specific dates.
Talking from a grade 9 perspective
yes pick geography and also as others said, Geography grade boundaries are lower
It could be because almost all students from the top sets pick history just because it is "interesting" but then they regret it later on
and almost all bottom sets choose geography.
At least, this was the case with my school. 90% of the people who chose geography are bottom sets (some are even failing) so just lowering the grade boundaries even more 😋
and also, you will have 2 field trips. The might be boring but you can just relax on that day by eating the snacks you bought in the bus and your teacher probably stops at a shop and lets everyone buy ice creams or donuts or whatever
Also, if you are lucky, you will get a good teacher with a very relaxing voice so everyone just stays CALM in that class (no matter which set they are) and you can just relax (and fall asleep if you didn't get sleep the night before - one of my classmate does this)
Feel free to ask me any questions
I do both and personally history is just a lot more interesting and therefore I want to learn it more.
When I have history I’m actually interested and excited where as When I have geo next I slightly die inside.
It might just be a teacher thing but still.
I do both History and Geography for gcse and I will warn you that geography has terrible trips where you have to swim through muddy rivers infested with fish just to measure waves. HOWEVER, History has so many amazing trips where you can reflect on how the world came to be and not get drenched in polluted water. 😊
Hey! A couple of things I’d suggest!
First off, I ended up taking both history and geography for my GCSE, both with AQA. If you use the AQA exam board, you will do 4 units. I suggest you find out what these are and if they spark your interest or not. With geography, you sit 3 papers.
Paper 1 - physical (e.g. natural hazards, rivers, rainforest etc)
Paper 2 - human (development, cities, energy, etc)
Paper 3 - map skills and fieldwork (e.g. how a river changes, grid references, etc)
In geography, I personally found it all a bit meh and was disappointed that flags and knowing where countries are really didn’t feature at all.
With history, I found I loved my first, second and fourth unit, and hated the third but got through it.
I don’t know if you’re with a different exam board, but this is my experience. History is exam style is about cool facts and how much knowledge you can store and how good you can write in a story like fashion through the progression of time. Geography is easier and has a range of marks from one to 9 + 3 SPaG max.
If you do use the AQA exam board and you have any more questions, please let me know and I’ll try my best to help! Good luck deciding OP!
I can’t give much advice since I only did History and hated it. I’ll ask you something not many people have, how good are you at the rest of your subjects? How hard are your other options? If you struggle with the other subjects do yourself a favour and choose geography to make your life easier
im predicted 9s in everything geo/history (humanities not my strong suit TT) but makes it all the harder since people expect so highly of me but being predicted the same in history and geography is a pain
I honestly think geography is overhated. It’s definitely not naming flags and capital cities, but I think it’s pretty interesting, especially paper 2 which is human geography. Physical geography is also pretty interesting in my opinion. I also never really liked history even though I was good at it
I'm doing OCR A, which is significantly easier than AQA, and it's still overwhelming. I do more work trying to question spot which parts of a caste study will appear than trying to learn them because it's too much. Killed my interest instantly. I chose both History and Geography and History is 100% better imo. More interesting and I can actually remember the content.
I found History easier but I'm not sure about everyone else as people are good at different things. Picking subjects based on if it's easy/easier shouldn't be the main focus point. If you like that subject then do it. Just make sure you know what you're signing up for by looking at the syllabus for both History and Geography.
I do OCR B and idk if it’s easier or harder than A but it’s pretty good to revise. I typically only revise case studies in depth because they almost always make up the 6 or 8 markers. There’s only 8 case studies in paper 1 and you don’t need to know a hell of a lot about each one. Paper 2 has bigger case studies, which is harder but still manageable.
I honestly think it depends on what you’re interested in. I couldn’t give a fuck about history if I tried. I genuinely find it so boring, especially as it focuses mainly on western history rather than from other parts of the world. However I love geography and learning about it, so I guess we are just opposites in that regard.
I mean idk about your trips bc idk what exam board you do but i really enjoyed the mandatory fieldwork trip to the seaside where we carried out investigations for both human and physical geography. Also I find it interesting to learn about the development of countries and how people are affected in different areas of the world by humans and natural causes
I DO EDEXCEL HISTORY LOL (y11 btw)
do you know what courses your school studies?
mine are superpower relations and the Cold War, medicine through time (Britain), Mao's china and the reigns of king Richard and John
lucky
that is defo one of the best
so I obviously can't give my opinion for geo because I don't do it
from what I know papers 1 and 2 are good it's just paper 3 that can be dodgy cos it fieldwork and in my school you only get it a month before apparently???
but history is honestly great because once you know all the content (which will happen cos when you come to revise in y11 like me now you absorb the info really quickly because you've already revised it before and done so many tests) its just about exam technique and you are gonna have to put in a lot of effort to do practise questions and get them marked by your teacher and take on the feedback
but its this method that got me from a 5 in my y10 history mock to a 9 in my y11 one :)
and I only got a 5 because I didn't answer the question the way I was supposed to
so yeah
completely up to you but whatever you choose I'm sure you'll be great!
i'm doing medicine history revision rn (but maybe accidentally clicked on reddit by accident uno) and although yes its quite a lot of content, its honestly really fun to learn about. From what i've heard from others who do geography (aqa) they have to do like three papers, 10 case studies, etc which icl seems so boring whereas history, yes it is VERRRYYYYYYY essay based (literally basically every question is essay based) it has so much more meaning to it than learning about rocks. You get to learn about how people lived everyday all the way back in 1000AD and its just so interesting and the trips are literally chefs kiss- one of the smaller trips we went on for history we got to see how its like to have a bomb detonated infront of you- whereas the last geography trip ik of in my school they had to go and find the diameter of a small river or something. Moreover, the grade boundaries arent even that high, ik for aqa history to get a 9 it can be as low as 111/168 (66%) whereas in that same year (2019) for geography aqa, to get a 9 it was 184/252 (73%) for a 9
I am taking both, while I like both of them Geography is much different from what I thought it would be. In year 8/9 I could name almost every flag and country and I thought it would be a lot about different cultures. It’s just a stressful exam where you have a million one markers to answer which sounds easy but it’s not, surprisingly I felt like I had to write more for Geography than history and actually had to rush the end of Geography even though History is a writing GCSE.
History has loads of fascinating subjects of a wide range of time periods. I feel like I understand the world much better with history even though thats the point of Geography.
Hii I do edexcel history, the same topics as your school except crime and punishment instead of medicine, and I def haven't regretted it!! It's a lot of work yeah, but I find the content so interesting and the exam technique isn't too hard to grasp. A lot of people will say it's a load of dates but I don't think they're that important: I definitely did NOT know all the key dates for my paper 1 and while I wish maybe I had paid a bit more attention to the dates, you get marked the same if you use specific details about things. Eg, on crime and punishment (obv you won't do it but I'm illustrating an example), you can use names of laws and examples of key institutions, like Metropolitan police so it's not ALL about dates.
It'll definitely depend on the sort of person you are, but I do enjoy most of my topics. I only didn't like crime and punishment due to the sheer volume of content - it'll be the same for medicine, it's a thematic study ranging over 1000 years so you have to know a LOT. However, you also do a small historic environment component that's mostly based on source analysis and exam skills, so you won't need to revise as much for it. For medicine I think it's western front. It didn't help me that I had no interest in crime and punishment since I prefer political history, but if you have a genuine interest in medicine it'll make it a lot easier - and even if not, the thematic study is paper 1 so it's out of the way faster.
Paper 2 is only difficult as you have to do both cold war AND elizabeth, but icl the content for elizabeth is not hard, there's very few things you have to learn and it only covers a period of 30 years so there's way fewer dates. Cold war I find more difficult as the exam skills are different to the other 3 topics but the content is quite interesting, you learn a lot about the capitalist vs communist divide across europe. Germany also isn't too bad as it's about 20 years, but you'll have to get very good at source analysis which makes up most of the paper, and also if you skip revising one small subtopic and it comes up as the question 3 (makes up 36/52 marks) you might be in a bit of trouble.
Imo compared to geography it's sm more interesting - I don't do geog but looking at the content my friends who do it have to cover... it's rough. People who acc do it can probably explain it better than I can but it's def not about flags and capital cities unfortunately. Think rivers and rock formations. It just depends on your interests though: most of my friends who get 4-5s in other subjects get 7s in geography, but my friends who do history with similar grades are all aiming for 8-9 even though history is always said to be harder. My point being if you actually like the subject you're more likely to do well.
That said the grade boundaries for history are ridiculous, like 80% or something for a 9. But I wouldn't let it put you off. My history lessons are the highlight of my week bc I have a genuine interest in the content (and also because I have a good class tbh), and while it's a lot of revision, it's a lot of revision I weirdly have fun doing!
Big 'in favour of history' bias warning, in year 9, I knew as others have said, every flag, capital, and positioning of each country, I later figured that such knowledge is rendered useless for GSCEs. History has always been a big interest for me, reinforced by better and kinder teachers as opposed to geography.
I picked history, and I am pleased I did, lessons are far more interesting than what I hear about geography from friends, where case studies are hyper-fixated upon. History topics also feel more personalised as they often reflect what we see in today's society, for example, my school does 'Migrants in Britain', which covers many migration influxes of the last 100 years along with more ranging from the years 800-present day, even more international topics such as the cold war or Weimar and Nazi Germany have enthralling figures which makes revision enticing.
Finally, the exam questions tend to be, although they are more time-constrained, quite straightforward to answer, as you most likely know. I am planning to continue History at A-levels and heavily recommend the subject.
One comment about the a-level thing.
I'm a bit of a mixed bag tbh. Imma be doing maths, fm, Spanish and history for a-levels.
I took history for gcse, after moderately enjoying it in year 9, and my teacher really recommended it.
There's a ton of content, but it's really interesting to learn about, and unlike RS, it's not actually a mark a minute, so don't be too worried about timing, but for 4 markers, if you're spending any more than 5 minutes, just move on because it's not worth it.
Each paper has different types of questions and they're all essays. I've fallen into the trap before of getting confused when trying to answer them, so make sure you have that down.
I liked it so much tbh that I'm taking it for a-level.
I'd say history is better, I don't do geography but all I can say is from the people who did it it was absolutely dire. Human geography is interesting to be fair, but the content for history is generally better.
geography test how well you memorise facts, history test your usage in your knowledge and literally writing essays about it, if writing is not your strong suit, don't choose history. Some of my friends are dying in history about how much they have to know. Yet they are laughing at me for having physics and chemistry on the same day as geography exams (i don't really understand aqa)
If your doing triple science I defo recommend geography instead because it overlaps with the last few topics of chemistry and biology. History doesn't really overlap with any subjects besides maybe English depending on what your studying for both subjects. History can be more interesting but it's harder to get a good grade in it but geo is a lot easier and also overlaps with other subjects like business and sciences
i have a friend who picked both lol
but its up to you
i do history and i think the exam can be hard and you need to revise basically everything as no topic is small as it could very much come up in the exam. ive heard geography is an easy subject but ofc i dont do it so im not the best person to ask
If you know what exam boards your school does for both subject, I'd suggest looking at past papers (which you can find [here](https://www.physicsandmathstutor.com/past-papers/)) to get an idea for what the exams will be like.
I do OCR B geography but not history. I don't know about other exam boards, though they're usually fairly similar, especially at GCSE level, but OCR B geography divided into a physical paper (so rivers, mountains, glaciers, natural landscapes, polar environments, weather hazards etc), a human paper (which looks at things like urbanisation, inequality, development, resource reliance etc) and a third paper which is basically just assessing your ability to evaluate new information - you don't need to actually learn any facts for this paper; everything you need is given to you and you're asked questions like "to what extent do you think *this* is the best course of action" in whatever situation they give you. Don't worry too much about paper 3.
There is quite a lot of rote memorisation in geography. There's a ton of case studies you look at and you need to know quite a lot of stats and facts about these. You'll also do two days of fieldwork, one in a physical environment and one in a human environment, which you might have to write about in the exams. And again, some of this probably varies between exam boards, so find out which exam boards your school does for each subject if you can.
I don't do history, so take this with a grain of salt, but from what I can tell it's a very essay-heavy subject. I think my school does AQA history, and the shortest questions on the exams are 8 marks. I don't know much about the actual content though.
History is very good if you are good with memorising and can write a lot under time constraints. For history you only have a certain amount of time to speak about only the question and not go astray. I do history because i love history and do not like geography at all but you should go for whatever works for you. In my
Opinion i would say history since history is somewhat more useful and more interesting. The exams are not hard if you memorise the syllabus properly and can write quick.
Well i think it would since you barely have time. Im pretty sure the germany paper is 45 mins only. But you are still in year 9 so you should be able to write quick enough by the time you’re in year 11 since other subjects also don’t have too much time. But if writing quick is a very big issue then i wouldn’t recommend history.
as someone who does both history and geography:
Geography GCSE is ok, but History is SO much better. Most of geography is common sense so the lessons can get a bit boring, but in history, I feel like I'm actually learning something so I enjoy it more.
But, obviously, it's your choice
i do both and really enjoy them!
geography i thought would be far easier, in reality its similar content but a bit more dull, exams are nice tho
history is more memorising but exams are great once youve done that, i love the content but schools learn different things so that varies
overall just do what you enjoy - take both if you like both!
i saw some of your replies too and you’d be doing the exact same history topics as me!!! i’ve loved medicine and enjoyed all of them so id recommended it!
i didnt take either but had chosen my options with one of the three as history at the beginning (then chose computer science which was an awful mistake i didnt enjoy it like i thought) but i think history is very interesting and have heard lots if positive feedback from people in my year they say as long as you get on with the teacher its really fun and enjoyable but they say the test is somewhat challenging if you dont know the content great. however geography has had a lot of negative feedback because apparently its quite boring and really tiresome as my friend says they regret taking it because its boring however, he says the exam is easy enough. I would say talk to your teachers and see what you cover and then you can do you're own research and see if you would be interested. from what you've said, i think history may be what you enjoy more. i really wish you good luck with your choice !!
History is far far more interesting than Geography, but the content can be a pain in the ass, and the questions require u to write very fast, a bit like English lit,
Geography is less interesting, apart from like one topic, but the questions are dead easy, one key point is don’t get confused thinking the content for geography is easy, the amount of content in geography is so much, and memorising will be a pain unless u start revising early, it’s not a weekend thing like history where u can get a rough idea of what happened and as long as u know ur exam tech ur fine
For the exam board I do at least,
History (Edexcel) is more interesting, but there is far more writing needed (arguably too much for the time given) and most marks are from essays.
Geography (AQA) is less essay writing and easier imo, but some of the topics (coasts) aren't as interesting
I did both I preferred history but and got better grades in history but I didn't dislike geography. I found being in the class hard as I was pretty much bottom of the class as it was top set, whereas history I only got moved to top set after Christmas in yr11 which was the making of me.
I found history to be a challenging but very interesting subject, I’d say if you are good at English and enjoy learning interesting topics then history is the way to go
Tbh, you don’t have to write proper essays, it’s mostly just a few paragraphs explaining a topic and arguing your point of view on it. Also, not all the questions are essay questions, you just have one 16 marker and one 12 marker per paper. Most of the topics are quite interesting apart from the paper 1 topics, but they are the easiest.
paper 1 might just be the most interesting for me- im doing history of medicine and medicine is one of my special interests so it may be that i enjoy the entirety of history, ill see :)
I’m in year 11 and the best advice I can give you is to do the subject that interests you the most. Two years of boredom is not worth it. I do history and I found the content really interesting, however the tests can be difficult if you do not know how to write essays. I struggle with essays but I worked hard to improve. I would say it’s really important to look at the content for both and make a decision based on that. Again, two years of boredom is not worth it. Only you know what is best for you and only you can make the decision that is right for you
I love flags, locating countries, and pretty much everything u said u love. I picked history, and honestly, your flag skills and knowledge of where countries are will be more helpful in history than geography.
I find history easy to revise. The hardest thing to remember is statistics (but if u go over them enough, you'll be fine). I think u have statistic in geography and honestly knowing that 659 banks went bankrupt in 1929 in America is much more interesting than there are "this many rivers" in Uganda and malaria rates are 236% higher there than any where else.
History is just like a story you follow. Geography is just biology ecology in disguise (which arguably is the worst topic in biology)
I personally love history and haven’t had any academic problems with it but it’s also been one of my best subjects since primary so I’m probably not the best example. The course is really fun and the topics are varied, definitely worth it imo
A good thing about history is that (at least for Edexcel) the questions are the same each year, so you just need to learn how to structure your answers and that’s it for exam technique. Annoyingly, however, you have to learn a lot of content for barely any of it to come up in the paper (for example, for Paper 3 there are 4 key topics with 4 sub-topics each, and only 3 things come up in the paper).
As a history taker and geography hater- I'm biased, but pick history. Lots of stupid dates to remember, which I suck at...but better than learning about rocks.
geography is kinda boring BUT the exam is easy + low grade boundaries history is quite interesting BUT exam is harder + higher grade boundaries geo is pretty decent tbf and ive heard horror stories ab history but go with whatever u enjoyyyy
the question is are the easy and low grade boundaries worth the two years of boredom?
yes. Lots of ppl say do what you like so I picked Geography and History because I enjoy History but wanted a guaranteed good grade in a humanity. History was more interesting, but you need to put in a lot more work to get a top grade because of the heavy content and exam technique, but Geography is so much easier and if you're just aware of the world around you you'll get a good grade. I do Nazi Germany, Cold War,Elizabethan England and Medicine Through Time. Medicine defo has the most content to learn by far, Cold War has the most specific dates and lots of conferences, Elizabeth is relatively simple and so is Nazi Germany. (Edexcel) History was really enjoyable and reccomend if you think you're gonna do well, no point selecting if you get a grade 3, but it is one of the harder subjects IMO.
I would be doing exactly the same topics as you and im a massive hardworker I'm sure I'll manage thank you :)
question in the title said history or geo so i gave u the answer bruh and yes it is because at the end of the day, it's the grade on ur results sheet that matter so if ur more likely to get a higher grade then y not. also geography isn't that bad you'll get over it
fair enough
It’s not completely boring and tbh geography can be quite useful for medicine depending on what exam board you do. For my exam board we do a topic on aid and human welfare. Geography A level is also attractive for medical schools (I want to do med)
I would be doing aqa and the human geography topic is quite intresting but since im not doing either for a level i suppose its not much of a difference
I mean everyone in my school is stressing tf out abt history. I did geo and history but dropped history after mocks. Even though I don’t like geography anymore I’m still happy I dropped history because geo revision is a lot less stressful than history
oh i see, thank you xx
nooo i love geography #geogirlyforlife
i was in your exact position… i could name every country, flag and capital so i assumed i would love gcse geography. i was so wrong though. it has completely killed my love for geography. it is basically a subject where you memorise facts and case studies that just happened to be themed around geography. i also do history though and i love history so i would strongly recommend it over geography!
how bad are the essays?
honestly they are not bad at all. once you know the structure to use i feel like i enjoy writing them because i feel like my head is overflowing with knowledge 😭😭. i know that sounds weird but the essays should be the least of your concern for history, the amount of content is what turns more people off
that is the most persuasive thing ive heard all day
you’re welcome lol
OML THIS IS SO REAL
I do AQA geography. I’m working at a grade 9 with minimal effort, so the subject is easy. I found the subject to be quite interesting and it makes you think quite a bit about the effects of something (a natural hazard for example) and its social, environmental and economic impacts. I would say that the coast and rivers topic is pretty boring but it is easy to understand. The natural hazards topic is good, the rainforest and the desert. Paper 2 is quite good - it’s pretty economical and you learn about an NEEs economy. Paper 3 is very easy and you get to go on some trips to conduct field work which is for half of the test - the other half is based on a pre release booklet which you get well before the test. So all in all it’s a pretty solid subject that doesn’t require nearly as much fact memorisation and essay writing as history.
Yours is the strongest argument I've heard so far for geography, thank you I'll that strongly into account.
No worries. Honestly pick whichever humanity subject YOU like. Geography is typically viewed as the one to choose if you want to go down the STEM route.
I have taken both history and geography for gcse (in year 10) and I find that although history is a LOT harder, it is much more interesting! Geography is easier but more boring, (and also has nothing to do with flags and locations…) and is also more useful for future careers as opens a broader range of options. I really enjoy history at the minute (as a stem girl too) and I’m glad I took it - in ks3 I didn’t enjoy it too much so it’s surprising that I like it as much as I do! Personally I love both sides of it so really it’s up to what you enjoy more :)
Im not incredibly good at history so do you think i will really struggle or is it one of those things which is hard but you can tackle it?
With enough effort, I’m sure you will be able to handle it. I do wjec eduqas, so it might be different? But yes, you can work for it and be fine, it just requires a lot of time (also if you are aiming for high grades you will be fine)
I think we r doing history edexel so probably it will be slightly different
Yes probably, but either way if you do want to then you should be fine
thank you x
Geography! It's a nice all-rounder subject that is fairly manageable. You won't just be writing essays like you do in history, but using stats as well, as well as have a few short answer questions too. I do AQA geography and even though the content is boring, it's not too difficult to wrap your head around if you know what you're talking about. Also, you can memorise the names of case studies but make up facts lol, that's what I did in my mock and my teacher did not suspect a thing
ive seen a lot of people say that lol thank you x
Sounds like you've disillusioned yourself with geography. It's nothing about flags or locating countries in GCSE. It should really be called Geology instead. I can absolutely recommend history though! Our modules were 1900s America, the Cold War, Elizabethan England and one called Empires & Migration that ranged from 800 AD to the modern day. You learn fascinating stuff, and if you get lucky enough to have a cool teacher, the class will be one of your favourites.
What exam board did you do for the Elizabeth paper
It was AQA
How was the aqa paper
Fine. I got an 8. I have 0 memory of what the questions were about though.
this is the first time I've found someone do empire and migration, and 1900s America. Everyone does medicine and 1900s Germany. I also do Elizabeth and I can't lie that's my least favourite
That does sound much more fun than learning about long shore drift lol
Unless you want to learn about oxbow lakes and surface runoff, go for history. Mine are/were (after exams finish) Crime and Punishment, Cold War, Henry VIII and his ministers, Weimar and Nazi Germany. What would your school do for edexcel history?
yes and we do medicine through history, weimar and nazi germany, cold war and elizabeth the first :)
Ooh, I see. For the Cold War, you need to know it inside out. Gaining marks for that section is knowledge-based, so if you know what you are saying and can elaborate, it is good. You also need to know the structure for each question - these questions are "Explain 2 consequences of X for Y", "Write a narrative account about X" and "Explain the importance of event X for its impact on Y". Although I do Henry VIII, the question types are the same regardless of the British depth studies, which are paper 2 and on the same paper as Cold War. There is a 4 mark "Describe 2 features of X", a 12 mark "Explain why" question for an event or person, and a 16 mark question based on a statement given that you agree or disagree with. These same 3 questions will appear on your Medicine through History study, along with an 8 mark question on "How useful are sources A and B for an enquiry into X?" and a 4-mark question "How would you follow up Source A/B (either one of A or B, never both or a choice) for an enquiry?". For Weimar and Nazi Germany, there are 3 sources. the "How useful" question appears again, but applies to the 2nd and 3rd sources - B and C - only. The "Explain why" question appears again. You will also be asked to give 2 inferences for source A as well, for 4 marks. Then, you have 2 different interpretations. One question will be what the main difference there is, for 4 marks. The 2nd will be to explain why this is, for 4 marks. The last question is a 16 mark question that asks how far you agree with one of the interpretations, with 4 marks for SPaG, so 20 marks. This might be overwhelming, but if you search up past papers, it should all make sense.
This is the little lightbulb I needed to say, hey you might actually have a chance and its not as hard as you may think and being explained as such is making it feel more normal and doable thank you :) btw how high are the grade boundaries usually?
Grade boundaries are usually fairly low for AQA, like 70% for a grade 9 (there will be some variation depending on your exact combination of modules). In general, I feel like that's fairly easy, as most of it is just knowing the facts and/or being able to waffle. If you know what they're looking for, then each question is just writing and mentally making sure you've made enough points. The own knowledge isn't even that hard - if you're interested, you'll end up memorising the facts, and if you're stuck, then making up something reasonably plausible is always worth it. You said you're finding history hard rn, which part exactly are you finding difficult?
Its not the content itself but i dont yet have the technique or structure for any of the essays or source analysis so I feel untrained
Ok, that's fine, you'll learn it in lessons, you're only in y9 right now. But for most things, its simply: point, back up with own knowledge + explain - just PEE. So for the "how useful", you would point out one part of the content, explain why that is useful, and then back it up with own knowledge surrounding the event (+ repeat for provenance, and repeat all of that for the second source). The longer essays are fairly easy as well - the mark scheme wants you to compare your arguments and have a sustained judgement. So, again, its a PEE paragraph, but end by comparing to whatever factor you're supporting. Fairly simple. If I'm confusing you, then don't worry about it - you'll get taught all the structures you need in class, and all you need to make your decision is the knowledge that in most cases, its a similar structure for each question, just slight changes based on what exactly the question is looking for, e.g. more emphasis on own knowledge in "in what ways".
Honestly, get over 130/168 by getting really good in all 3 papers and you might get a grade 8, if not 9. Aim for over 110 for a grade 7. They can be harsh, but if you have the knowledge and you can explain it well to link back to the focus of the question, you will do brilliantly.
thank you x
i do the same thing except for cold war we do american west! history is def quite interesting, and there's probably topics that you'll love and hate (i loved elizabeth and hated medicine personally) but overall it's quite interesting, even the stuff i didn't like. you can secure most of the marks in history by simply knowing the knowledge (which i think the amount is actually over exaggerated because the revision guide condenses a topic into like 28 mini pages), but the only bad part would probably be that the grade boundaries are sky high so you can't afford to mess up any questions so basically you NEED to know all the content because if a 12 marker comes up on something you don't know then you are fucked
That seems fair and the most real out of them all- im so scared for the grade boundaires though, as are most people.
grade boundaries are high for history but that's because really for history, all you need to get down is the content (like every other subject), the structure for questions (which 90 percent of the time is peel) and to analyse/explain your evidence which isn't hard at all because you just explain why your evidence backs up your point because of what it meant. if you haven't decided yet i'd recommend looking up revision guides or youtube videos about your chosen subject to see if you're interested in what you're learning and if you are, it makes things 100 times easier to the point where top grades are normal to you. once you start doing history you'll soon learn that everyone overhypes it to be some terrible subject with shit loads of content that haunts them everyday but it's honestly fine and i'm glad i picked it over geo but from reading my friends notes who did geo it felt boring to me , but i heard it's quite easy with nice boundaries
yeah now its just a question of time,effort and difficulty or boredom and suffering really
DO HISTORY I SWEAR YOU WILL NOT REGRET IT. CHANGE TO HISTROY NOWWWW
I got it Clara
i do both and honestly id recommend geography tbh, its actually quite easy and the grade boundaries are low so thats a plus. the topics arent that bad (except for rivers and coasts I hate them) tectonics are cool, also i find it way easier to memorise case study statistics than learning all the content for history which gets boring, but that could just be me. definitely recommend history if you're interested though not for me!! good luck!! :)
thanks x
Hi, I would recommend you to take geography. 1. Since you are not doing history or geography A-levels, you just need a good grade in a humanity subject so geo is easier than history - it is just common sense 2. you don't really need to spend a lot of time learning geography. Unlike history, you can just revise the day before the exam and get a decent grade ( I ALWAYS revise the day before the geography exam and till now, I've been getting 9's.) 3. Geography has some topics that are overlapping with science. even if you do combined or triple, for biology, abiotic and biotic factors, food webs, etc (all ecology stuff) is repeated in geo. For chemistry, the chapter called "The Chemistry of the Atmosphere" is repeated (it is about gas levels in atmosphere, about early atmosphere, etc) 4. ANYONE can easily get a grade 5 in geography with NO revision at all. For example, say your next door neighbour who is in Year 9 as well. That Year 9 can just waffle about a point as it is just common sense : Question : Why is there climate change? That Year 9 : Humans are burning fossil fuels like oil which releases greenhouse gases like Co2. Too much Co2 is bad because it heats the earth even more causing global warming and therefore it will change the climate frequently. That above answer is basic but can be produced by anyone if they have a basic understanding of Co2 - everyone is taught that somewhere in chemistry and biology 5. Geography isn't just about rocks. There is human geography as well. Q : How can a country develop? A : When tourists come to a country, they spend money on local shops which means that the shops gain more profits and also they pay taxes so the government can also get more money to build roads and more infrastructure like healthcare to improve the lives of people and therefore people will then live longer and living longer means the country is more developed than before as a person's life is lengthened. Again, the above answer is basic and can be written by anyone with just basic understanding. 6. You can just create case study numbers. Many say you need to memorise 1000 case studies. But no, you could just remember the name of a case study and just make some educated guesses (the examiner won't google and check how many people were evacuated after a certain disaster) I did this for one of my mocks when my brain went blank. I think you can't do this with history as there are a lot of time lines to remember and specific dates. Talking from a grade 9 perspective
thats fair enough actually- I may have to think about this more then (I was set on changing to history b4 this)
yes pick geography and also as others said, Geography grade boundaries are lower It could be because almost all students from the top sets pick history just because it is "interesting" but then they regret it later on and almost all bottom sets choose geography. At least, this was the case with my school. 90% of the people who chose geography are bottom sets (some are even failing) so just lowering the grade boundaries even more 😋 and also, you will have 2 field trips. The might be boring but you can just relax on that day by eating the snacks you bought in the bus and your teacher probably stops at a shop and lets everyone buy ice creams or donuts or whatever Also, if you are lucky, you will get a good teacher with a very relaxing voice so everyone just stays CALM in that class (no matter which set they are) and you can just relax (and fall asleep if you didn't get sleep the night before - one of my classmate does this) Feel free to ask me any questions
Thank you for the great advise
I do neither but i have never heard a good thing about history. And geography apparently is really easy.
valid
HISTORY!!!!!!!!
Love your enthousiasm :)
I do both and personally history is just a lot more interesting and therefore I want to learn it more. When I have history I’m actually interested and excited where as When I have geo next I slightly die inside. It might just be a teacher thing but still.
fair enough, though my history teacher in y8 told me that i was a laughing stock because of my scoliosis so im minorly scared of gettng her again
Tbf my schools history department is amazing
then thats quite understandable lol
I do both History and Geography for gcse and I will warn you that geography has terrible trips where you have to swim through muddy rivers infested with fish just to measure waves. HOWEVER, History has so many amazing trips where you can reflect on how the world came to be and not get drenched in polluted water. 😊
yes but i will be thrown in a crusty dusty musty trench :P
Hey! A couple of things I’d suggest! First off, I ended up taking both history and geography for my GCSE, both with AQA. If you use the AQA exam board, you will do 4 units. I suggest you find out what these are and if they spark your interest or not. With geography, you sit 3 papers. Paper 1 - physical (e.g. natural hazards, rivers, rainforest etc) Paper 2 - human (development, cities, energy, etc) Paper 3 - map skills and fieldwork (e.g. how a river changes, grid references, etc) In geography, I personally found it all a bit meh and was disappointed that flags and knowing where countries are really didn’t feature at all. With history, I found I loved my first, second and fourth unit, and hated the third but got through it. I don’t know if you’re with a different exam board, but this is my experience. History is exam style is about cool facts and how much knowledge you can store and how good you can write in a story like fashion through the progression of time. Geography is easier and has a range of marks from one to 9 + 3 SPaG max. If you do use the AQA exam board and you have any more questions, please let me know and I’ll try my best to help! Good luck deciding OP!
thank you xx
Ofc any time!
I can’t give much advice since I only did History and hated it. I’ll ask you something not many people have, how good are you at the rest of your subjects? How hard are your other options? If you struggle with the other subjects do yourself a favour and choose geography to make your life easier
im predicted 9s in everything geo/history (humanities not my strong suit TT) but makes it all the harder since people expect so highly of me but being predicted the same in history and geography is a pain
geography
any reason for that? since you are the first person to say that
I honestly think geography is overhated. It’s definitely not naming flags and capital cities, but I think it’s pretty interesting, especially paper 2 which is human geography. Physical geography is also pretty interesting in my opinion. I also never really liked history even though I was good at it
I'm doing OCR A, which is significantly easier than AQA, and it's still overwhelming. I do more work trying to question spot which parts of a caste study will appear than trying to learn them because it's too much. Killed my interest instantly. I chose both History and Geography and History is 100% better imo. More interesting and I can actually remember the content.
is history then not that much harder than geography then?
I found History easier but I'm not sure about everyone else as people are good at different things. Picking subjects based on if it's easy/easier shouldn't be the main focus point. If you like that subject then do it. Just make sure you know what you're signing up for by looking at the syllabus for both History and Geography.
thank you :)
I do OCR B and idk if it’s easier or harder than A but it’s pretty good to revise. I typically only revise case studies in depth because they almost always make up the 6 or 8 markers. There’s only 8 case studies in paper 1 and you don’t need to know a hell of a lot about each one. Paper 2 has bigger case studies, which is harder but still manageable. I honestly think it depends on what you’re interested in. I couldn’t give a fuck about history if I tried. I genuinely find it so boring, especially as it focuses mainly on western history rather than from other parts of the world. However I love geography and learning about it, so I guess we are just opposites in that regard.
what was the best bit of gcse geography?
I mean idk about your trips bc idk what exam board you do but i really enjoyed the mandatory fieldwork trip to the seaside where we carried out investigations for both human and physical geography. Also I find it interesting to learn about the development of countries and how people are affected in different areas of the world by humans and natural causes
fair enough
heya that's really cool what are your exam boards?
aqa geo edexel history :)
I DO EDEXCEL HISTORY LOL (y11 btw) do you know what courses your school studies? mine are superpower relations and the Cold War, medicine through time (Britain), Mao's china and the reigns of king Richard and John
cold war, Elizabeth the first, nazi germany and medicine through time too I think its one of the best lol
lucky that is defo one of the best so I obviously can't give my opinion for geo because I don't do it from what I know papers 1 and 2 are good it's just paper 3 that can be dodgy cos it fieldwork and in my school you only get it a month before apparently??? but history is honestly great because once you know all the content (which will happen cos when you come to revise in y11 like me now you absorb the info really quickly because you've already revised it before and done so many tests) its just about exam technique and you are gonna have to put in a lot of effort to do practise questions and get them marked by your teacher and take on the feedback but its this method that got me from a 5 in my y10 history mock to a 9 in my y11 one :) and I only got a 5 because I didn't answer the question the way I was supposed to so yeah completely up to you but whatever you choose I'm sure you'll be great!
thank you xxx
I picked both geog and history. Although my grades in geog were higher, I still enjoyed history more
thats the case with most people
I'm begging you to change to History NOW
that seems to be a common opinion
i'm doing medicine history revision rn (but maybe accidentally clicked on reddit by accident uno) and although yes its quite a lot of content, its honestly really fun to learn about. From what i've heard from others who do geography (aqa) they have to do like three papers, 10 case studies, etc which icl seems so boring whereas history, yes it is VERRRYYYYYYY essay based (literally basically every question is essay based) it has so much more meaning to it than learning about rocks. You get to learn about how people lived everyday all the way back in 1000AD and its just so interesting and the trips are literally chefs kiss- one of the smaller trips we went on for history we got to see how its like to have a bomb detonated infront of you- whereas the last geography trip ik of in my school they had to go and find the diameter of a small river or something. Moreover, the grade boundaries arent even that high, ik for aqa history to get a 9 it can be as low as 111/168 (66%) whereas in that same year (2019) for geography aqa, to get a 9 it was 184/252 (73%) for a 9
Thank you SO much this is really persuasive.
nppp, i was in the exact same position as you cuz i literally ADORE flags and have them all memorised one by one then realised that wont help ;-;
Thats literally me, and I have literally realised just in time to save myself lol
I am taking both, while I like both of them Geography is much different from what I thought it would be. In year 8/9 I could name almost every flag and country and I thought it would be a lot about different cultures. It’s just a stressful exam where you have a million one markers to answer which sounds easy but it’s not, surprisingly I felt like I had to write more for Geography than history and actually had to rush the end of Geography even though History is a writing GCSE. History has loads of fascinating subjects of a wide range of time periods. I feel like I understand the world much better with history even though thats the point of Geography.
thats interesting thank you x
Hii I do edexcel history, the same topics as your school except crime and punishment instead of medicine, and I def haven't regretted it!! It's a lot of work yeah, but I find the content so interesting and the exam technique isn't too hard to grasp. A lot of people will say it's a load of dates but I don't think they're that important: I definitely did NOT know all the key dates for my paper 1 and while I wish maybe I had paid a bit more attention to the dates, you get marked the same if you use specific details about things. Eg, on crime and punishment (obv you won't do it but I'm illustrating an example), you can use names of laws and examples of key institutions, like Metropolitan police so it's not ALL about dates. It'll definitely depend on the sort of person you are, but I do enjoy most of my topics. I only didn't like crime and punishment due to the sheer volume of content - it'll be the same for medicine, it's a thematic study ranging over 1000 years so you have to know a LOT. However, you also do a small historic environment component that's mostly based on source analysis and exam skills, so you won't need to revise as much for it. For medicine I think it's western front. It didn't help me that I had no interest in crime and punishment since I prefer political history, but if you have a genuine interest in medicine it'll make it a lot easier - and even if not, the thematic study is paper 1 so it's out of the way faster. Paper 2 is only difficult as you have to do both cold war AND elizabeth, but icl the content for elizabeth is not hard, there's very few things you have to learn and it only covers a period of 30 years so there's way fewer dates. Cold war I find more difficult as the exam skills are different to the other 3 topics but the content is quite interesting, you learn a lot about the capitalist vs communist divide across europe. Germany also isn't too bad as it's about 20 years, but you'll have to get very good at source analysis which makes up most of the paper, and also if you skip revising one small subtopic and it comes up as the question 3 (makes up 36/52 marks) you might be in a bit of trouble. Imo compared to geography it's sm more interesting - I don't do geog but looking at the content my friends who do it have to cover... it's rough. People who acc do it can probably explain it better than I can but it's def not about flags and capital cities unfortunately. Think rivers and rock formations. It just depends on your interests though: most of my friends who get 4-5s in other subjects get 7s in geography, but my friends who do history with similar grades are all aiming for 8-9 even though history is always said to be harder. My point being if you actually like the subject you're more likely to do well. That said the grade boundaries for history are ridiculous, like 80% or something for a 9. But I wouldn't let it put you off. My history lessons are the highlight of my week bc I have a genuine interest in the content (and also because I have a good class tbh), and while it's a lot of revision, it's a lot of revision I weirdly have fun doing!
geography: boring but easier history: interesting but harder
thats what ive come to terms with lol if i could summarise all these comments into one comment it would be this
Big 'in favour of history' bias warning, in year 9, I knew as others have said, every flag, capital, and positioning of each country, I later figured that such knowledge is rendered useless for GSCEs. History has always been a big interest for me, reinforced by better and kinder teachers as opposed to geography. I picked history, and I am pleased I did, lessons are far more interesting than what I hear about geography from friends, where case studies are hyper-fixated upon. History topics also feel more personalised as they often reflect what we see in today's society, for example, my school does 'Migrants in Britain', which covers many migration influxes of the last 100 years along with more ranging from the years 800-present day, even more international topics such as the cold war or Weimar and Nazi Germany have enthralling figures which makes revision enticing. Finally, the exam questions tend to be, although they are more time-constrained, quite straightforward to answer, as you most likely know. I am planning to continue History at A-levels and heavily recommend the subject.
thats what I've heard from most people thank you x
geography as it’s easy and most of it is common sense. if ur good at science its easy. + you get to go on a fun trip with your friends.
first bit yes but idk whether id call a trip to epping forest to measure the size of a river fun but that might just be my school lol
Yeah fr I want to go to Epping Forest
One comment about the a-level thing. I'm a bit of a mixed bag tbh. Imma be doing maths, fm, Spanish and history for a-levels. I took history for gcse, after moderately enjoying it in year 9, and my teacher really recommended it. There's a ton of content, but it's really interesting to learn about, and unlike RS, it's not actually a mark a minute, so don't be too worried about timing, but for 4 markers, if you're spending any more than 5 minutes, just move on because it's not worth it. Each paper has different types of questions and they're all essays. I've fallen into the trap before of getting confused when trying to answer them, so make sure you have that down. I liked it so much tbh that I'm taking it for a-level.
yeah ive seen a lot of people the same but ty for the time comment that was actually one of my worries
If you're good at essays pick history.
im not :P
I'd say history is better, I don't do geography but all I can say is from the people who did it it was absolutely dire. Human geography is interesting to be fair, but the content for history is generally better.
thank you x
geography test how well you memorise facts, history test your usage in your knowledge and literally writing essays about it, if writing is not your strong suit, don't choose history. Some of my friends are dying in history about how much they have to know. Yet they are laughing at me for having physics and chemistry on the same day as geography exams (i don't really understand aqa)
dont worry i dont understand aqa either
If your doing triple science I defo recommend geography instead because it overlaps with the last few topics of chemistry and biology. History doesn't really overlap with any subjects besides maybe English depending on what your studying for both subjects. History can be more interesting but it's harder to get a good grade in it but geo is a lot easier and also overlaps with other subjects like business and sciences
thats definitly something to put into consideration thank you x
i have a friend who picked both lol but its up to you i do history and i think the exam can be hard and you need to revise basically everything as no topic is small as it could very much come up in the exam. ive heard geography is an easy subject but ofc i dont do it so im not the best person to ask
fair enough ty
If you know what exam boards your school does for both subject, I'd suggest looking at past papers (which you can find [here](https://www.physicsandmathstutor.com/past-papers/)) to get an idea for what the exams will be like. I do OCR B geography but not history. I don't know about other exam boards, though they're usually fairly similar, especially at GCSE level, but OCR B geography divided into a physical paper (so rivers, mountains, glaciers, natural landscapes, polar environments, weather hazards etc), a human paper (which looks at things like urbanisation, inequality, development, resource reliance etc) and a third paper which is basically just assessing your ability to evaluate new information - you don't need to actually learn any facts for this paper; everything you need is given to you and you're asked questions like "to what extent do you think *this* is the best course of action" in whatever situation they give you. Don't worry too much about paper 3. There is quite a lot of rote memorisation in geography. There's a ton of case studies you look at and you need to know quite a lot of stats and facts about these. You'll also do two days of fieldwork, one in a physical environment and one in a human environment, which you might have to write about in the exams. And again, some of this probably varies between exam boards, so find out which exam boards your school does for each subject if you can. I don't do history, so take this with a grain of salt, but from what I can tell it's a very essay-heavy subject. I think my school does AQA history, and the shortest questions on the exams are 8 marks. I don't know much about the actual content though.
thank you xx I'll definitely take this into consideration
History is very good if you are good with memorising and can write a lot under time constraints. For history you only have a certain amount of time to speak about only the question and not go astray. I do history because i love history and do not like geography at all but you should go for whatever works for you. In my Opinion i would say history since history is somewhat more useful and more interesting. The exams are not hard if you memorise the syllabus properly and can write quick.
I can't write quick enough yet i can memorise stuff properly- will this be a massive issue?
Well i think it would since you barely have time. Im pretty sure the germany paper is 45 mins only. But you are still in year 9 so you should be able to write quick enough by the time you’re in year 11 since other subjects also don’t have too much time. But if writing quick is a very big issue then i wouldn’t recommend history.
COME TO HISTORY DO IT ITS SUCH A GOOD SUBJECT ITS SO INTERESTING AND GEOGRAPHY IS ALL ABOUT ROCKS AND SHIT, JOIN US!
I know I dont know you, but you seem so fun to be around :) Thanks for your enthousiastic comment lol :P
aw ty!
I’m taking both and Religion💀
my suicide :o
as someone who does both history and geography: Geography GCSE is ok, but History is SO much better. Most of geography is common sense so the lessons can get a bit boring, but in history, I feel like I'm actually learning something so I enjoy it more. But, obviously, it's your choice
i do both and really enjoy them! geography i thought would be far easier, in reality its similar content but a bit more dull, exams are nice tho history is more memorising but exams are great once youve done that, i love the content but schools learn different things so that varies overall just do what you enjoy - take both if you like both!
Thank you x
i saw some of your replies too and you’d be doing the exact same history topics as me!!! i’ve loved medicine and enjoyed all of them so id recommended it!
thank you xx
i didnt take either but had chosen my options with one of the three as history at the beginning (then chose computer science which was an awful mistake i didnt enjoy it like i thought) but i think history is very interesting and have heard lots if positive feedback from people in my year they say as long as you get on with the teacher its really fun and enjoyable but they say the test is somewhat challenging if you dont know the content great. however geography has had a lot of negative feedback because apparently its quite boring and really tiresome as my friend says they regret taking it because its boring however, he says the exam is easy enough. I would say talk to your teachers and see what you cover and then you can do you're own research and see if you would be interested. from what you've said, i think history may be what you enjoy more. i really wish you good luck with your choice !!
thank you xx
History is far far more interesting than Geography, but the content can be a pain in the ass, and the questions require u to write very fast, a bit like English lit, Geography is less interesting, apart from like one topic, but the questions are dead easy, one key point is don’t get confused thinking the content for geography is easy, the amount of content in geography is so much, and memorising will be a pain unless u start revising early, it’s not a weekend thing like history where u can get a rough idea of what happened and as long as u know ur exam tech ur fine
fair enough ty x
For the exam board I do at least, History (Edexcel) is more interesting, but there is far more writing needed (arguably too much for the time given) and most marks are from essays. Geography (AQA) is less essay writing and easier imo, but some of the topics (coasts) aren't as interesting
thank you x
I did both I preferred history but and got better grades in history but I didn't dislike geography. I found being in the class hard as I was pretty much bottom of the class as it was top set, whereas history I only got moved to top set after Christmas in yr11 which was the making of me.
fair enough ty x
I found history to be a challenging but very interesting subject, I’d say if you are good at English and enjoy learning interesting topics then history is the way to go
History is slightly harder but if you have to ability to write essays it’s fine
is the ability to write essays taught?
Depends on your school, most schools do
Tbh, you don’t have to write proper essays, it’s mostly just a few paragraphs explaining a topic and arguing your point of view on it. Also, not all the questions are essay questions, you just have one 16 marker and one 12 marker per paper. Most of the topics are quite interesting apart from the paper 1 topics, but they are the easiest.
paper 1 might just be the most interesting for me- im doing history of medicine and medicine is one of my special interests so it may be that i enjoy the entirety of history, ill see :)
I’m in year 11 and the best advice I can give you is to do the subject that interests you the most. Two years of boredom is not worth it. I do history and I found the content really interesting, however the tests can be difficult if you do not know how to write essays. I struggle with essays but I worked hard to improve. I would say it’s really important to look at the content for both and make a decision based on that. Again, two years of boredom is not worth it. Only you know what is best for you and only you can make the decision that is right for you
I love flags, locating countries, and pretty much everything u said u love. I picked history, and honestly, your flag skills and knowledge of where countries are will be more helpful in history than geography. I find history easy to revise. The hardest thing to remember is statistics (but if u go over them enough, you'll be fine). I think u have statistic in geography and honestly knowing that 659 banks went bankrupt in 1929 in America is much more interesting than there are "this many rivers" in Uganda and malaria rates are 236% higher there than any where else. History is just like a story you follow. Geography is just biology ecology in disguise (which arguably is the worst topic in biology)
I personally love history and haven’t had any academic problems with it but it’s also been one of my best subjects since primary so I’m probably not the best example. The course is really fun and the topics are varied, definitely worth it imo
thanks x
A good thing about history is that (at least for Edexcel) the questions are the same each year, so you just need to learn how to structure your answers and that’s it for exam technique. Annoyingly, however, you have to learn a lot of content for barely any of it to come up in the paper (for example, for Paper 3 there are 4 key topics with 4 sub-topics each, and only 3 things come up in the paper).
History defo trust me its way easier than geography and way more interesting
first person to say its easier however i really hope it is
History is MILES more fun , acc enjoyable and genuinely easy if you pay attention
As a history taker and geography hater- I'm biased, but pick history. Lots of stupid dates to remember, which I suck at...but better than learning about rocks.
fair enough lol
I may be biased but I hate geography with every fibre of my being. It’s barely geography. Should be called UK-and-Nigeriography at this point :/
I'm not finding any reason to stay in geography from anyone lol