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JC Subject Combi..China studies or chemistry?
Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2014 11:07 pm
by AdeleisG
Hi all, I would like to ask for some advice regarding a level subjects. Currently my subject choices are physics, economics, maths and the last one - I'm not sure if I should choose china studies or chemistry.
Does anyone or their children know about the curriculum of china studies or chemistry? Would greatly appreciate if you can share some valuable advice here. I've some questions in mind though: how is the subject like? What's the difficulty level around? Did you/your child regret taking the subject?
Thanks in advance!
Re: JC Subject Combi..China studies or chemistry?
Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2014 11:56 pm
by JonC
Study China in Singapore?
Living in China for some years, confirm you will study China well.
If you or your child is good at Science, take Chemistry, also can have tuition if you are kiasu...
Re: JC Subject Combi..China studies or chemistry?
Posted: Wed Oct 29, 2014 12:56 am
by havok_ex
AdeleisG wrote:Hi all, I would like to ask for some advice regarding a level subjects. Currently my subject choices are physics, economics, maths and the last one - I'm not sure if I should choose china studies or chemistry.
Does anyone or their children know about the curriculum of china studies or chemistry? Would greatly appreciate if you can share some valuable advice here. I've some questions in mind though: how is the subject like? What's the difficulty level around? Did you/your child regret taking the subject?
Thanks in advance!
IMO chemistry is much more difficult than china studies. I never took it before but I was in the same class with H1 Eng Lit, Gen Studies in Chinese and China Studies in English. We were quite a weird mix. It depends on where you wish to proceed after A-levels. Having both physics and math is more than enough to open doors to almost all courses in university. So you dont have to pick chemistry even if you choose to enter the science or engineering route in university. From what I saw, my classmates were generally lazy but did pretty okay for China Studies so I dont think its too difficult.
I think lots of people take chemistry. Chemistry is really taxing in my opinion. Employs lots and lots of memory as well as application skills. I clicked well with physics, math, GP and lit but I always hated chem. For physics, you could derive formulas from the definition and vice versa. You could also derive the shapes of different graphs and relationships from those formulas itself, so there wasnt much to memorise. I invested much more time into chem but scored even worse for it than my other subjects. All that said, I regret taking chemistry. My JC was a neighbourhood JC so we didnt have much options in terms of subject combinations. It was either 3 science and 1 humanities or 3 humanities and 1 science. I wanted to take 2 of each but wasnt allowed.
Math and physics are critical in my opinion because a large portion of university spots are for science and engineering. But outside of these 2 subjects, you should choose something you are much more interested in. In any case, you can look up the syllabus on SEAB's website.
Re: JC Subject Combi..China studies or chemistry?
Posted: Wed Oct 29, 2014 8:53 am
by daisyt
You can look at the A level syllabus and question papers at the SEAB website for CSC. A lot of statistics and policies to understand, need submit a lun wen as part of A level.
Re: JC Subject Combi..China studies or chemistry?
Posted: Wed Oct 29, 2014 4:52 pm
by AdeleisG
[quote="havok_ex"][quote="AdeleisG"]Hi all, I would like to ask for some advice regarding a level subjects. Currently my subject choices are physics, economics, maths and the last one - I'm not sure if I should choose china studies or chemistry.
Does anyone or their children know about the curriculum of china studies or chemistry? Would greatly appreciate if you can share some valuable advice here. I've some questions in mind though: how is the subject like? What's the difficulty level around? Did you/your child regret taking the subject?
Thanks in advance![/quote]
IMO chemistry is much more difficult than china studies. I never took it before but I was in the same class with H1 Eng Lit, Gen Studies in Chinese and China Studies in English. We were quite a weird mix. It depends on where you wish to proceed after A-levels. Having both physics and math is more than enough to open doors to almost all courses in university. So you dont have to pick chemistry even if you choose to enter the science or engineering route in university. From what I saw, my classmates were generally lazy but did pretty okay for China Studies so I dont think its too difficult.
I think lots of people take chemistry. Chemistry is really taxing in my opinion. Employs lots and lots of memory as well as application skills. I clicked well with physics, math, GP and lit but I always hated chem. For physics, you could derive formulas from the definition and vice versa. You could also derive the shapes of different graphs and relationships from those formulas itself, so there wasnt much to memorise. I invested much more time into chem but scored even worse for it than my other subjects. All that said, I regret taking chemistry. My JC was a neighbourhood JC so we didnt have much options in terms of subject combinations. It was either 3 science and 1 humanities or 3 humanities and 1 science. I wanted to take 2 of each but wasnt allowed.
Math and physics are critical in my opinion because a large portion of university spots are for science and engineering. But outside of these 2 subjects, you should choose something you are much more interested in. In any case, you can look up the syllabus on SEAB's website.[/quote]
Thanks for the detailed sharing! I'm a triple science student and honestly, my sciences are better than my languages. But I don't have the intention of giving up physics (since it's a subject that can score in) so next to strike off from my list is chemistry. I enjoyed secondary school chemistry but I'm not too sure how's a level chemistry like. I have checked the syllabus on Seab website and I have seen new topics, so I would like to ask is JC chem a large jump from secondary school chem?
Re: JC Subject Combi..China studies or chemistry?
Posted: Wed Oct 29, 2014 11:22 pm
by Augmum
AdeleisG wrote:Hi all, I would like to ask for some advice regarding a level subjects. Currently my subject choices are physics, economics, maths and the last one - I'm not sure if I should choose china studies or chemistry.
Does anyone or their children know about the curriculum of china studies or chemistry? Would greatly appreciate if you can share some valuable advice here. I've some questions in mind though: how is the subject like? What's the difficulty level around? Did you/your child regret taking the subject?
Thanks in advance!
H2 Chem is much more tougher than O level Chem...
A Subj T ever prewarned the whole cohort tt even if u do well in O level Chem,
it doesnt mean tt u will surely do well in H2 Chem....
As what u learn in O level Chem is only a marginal few % of H2 Chem...
If u have the aptitude for CSC, u can seriously consider CSC ....
But with H2 Chem, it certainly open more doors for Uni courses....
Re: JC Subject Combi..China studies or chemistry?
Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2014 7:54 am
by zbear
Augmum wrote:H2 Chem is much more tougher than O level Chem...
A Subj T ever prewarned the whole cohort tt even if u do well in O level Chem,
it doesnt mean tt u will surely do well in H2 Chem....
As what u learn in O level Chem is only a marginal few % of H2 Chem...
If u have the aptitude for CSC, u can seriously consider CSC ....
But with H2 Chem, it certainly open more doors for Uni courses....
This is exactly what my dd says too - O level Chem is nothing compared to A Level Chem.
Re: JC Subject Combi..China studies or chemistry?
Posted: Thu Nov 27, 2014 7:12 pm
by KPFan
If you plan to do medicine course in the university, you'll need to have H2 Chemistry.
Re: JC Subject Combi..China studies or chemistry?
Posted: Fri Nov 28, 2014 11:48 am
by Skyed
CSE or CSC? For CSC pls keep in mind you'll probably be competing with a lot of china scholars because they're the ones who take it mostly. CSE, from a friend who took it, you will learn the history, politics etc of China. It's like history but focused on China. I took H2 chem and although I did struggle with it at first, it's quite a manageable subject IMO. I had an A2 at Os for pure chem but my percentile for chem in my school was consistently 50+,60+ percentile. But the jump from O to A level chem is really huge.