darylrocks Posted April 12, 2013 Report Share Posted April 12, 2013 I made a 87 freshman year in bio not trying at all.Next year I'm taking IB eng SL IB USH HL AP Human Geo honors french 2 ap stat honors precal honors physics and I can't decide whether or not to take bio or ess. Will bio take more time/ effort? Is ess significantly easier? I will be a junior next year and how many hours of work a day am i looking at? Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dana4survival Posted April 12, 2013 Report Share Posted April 12, 2013 IB's actually a lot of hard work...and bio is a lot of memorization. getting an 87 w/o trying as a freshman is not uncommon, if you don't try in IB HL, you won't be getting an 87 lol. IB's rubric is really precised.can't say for ess. never took it, my school doesn't even offer it. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
susanne Posted April 12, 2013 Report Share Posted April 12, 2013 BIOLOGY! OBVIOUSLY! Go out there and challenge yourself! (but it's not extremely difficult, you just need to be very organized) From what I've heard ESS is a bit of a joke in our schoolbut then again, it depends on what you want to do. UNless you are aiming to be an environmental scientist, I encourage you to take Biology (it is actually one of the easier sciences even at HL) Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
cricketcrazynerd Posted April 12, 2013 Report Share Posted April 12, 2013 I made a 87 freshman year in bio not trying at all.Next year I'm taking IB eng SL IB USH HL AP Human Geo honors french 2 ap stat honors precal honors physics and I can't decide whether or not to take bio or ess. Will bio take more time/ effort? Is ess significantly easier? I will be a junior next year and how many hours of work a day am i looking at?Biology, many of my friends take both bio hl and ess and we can ensure you that biology is much more interesting and easier. They both require approximately the same amount of time and effort, but to some extent biology is easier because it is basically just memorisation. How many hours depends on your work ethic... I spend around 3-4 hours on bio every week Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
drserosa Posted April 12, 2013 Report Share Posted April 12, 2013 Take ESS. Unless it's a prerequisite for university, you'd be kicking yourself later along IB when your spending so much time with biology, potentially having less time to study other subjects, when you take the easier option in ESS. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sandwich Posted April 13, 2013 Report Share Posted April 13, 2013 SL Biology and ESS are both more or less as easy as each other and require similar skills. A tiny bit of data interpretation and some memorisation. Really it's up to you. Possibly there's a tad more memorising in Biology but then it's more varied and interesting. ESS is a bit more wishy-washy as a subject. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarah1 Posted April 26, 2013 Report Share Posted April 26, 2013 I personally find ES&S easier, and I get the fun schedule of having them both, back-to-back this year! I don't struggle too much in Biology HL, but this is from someone who went through Honors Physical Science with a 99 and Honors Biology with a 97, all without trying. If I had had an 87 in Honors Biology... I probably would have tried to avoid Biology HL, even if that was my "not trying" grade.But of course, there are differences between schools. My teacher might just be harder than the one at your school, it all depends. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
I-Bugger Posted April 30, 2013 Report Share Posted April 30, 2013 I took ESS, and guess what, it's heaven! In fact i never studied for the mock exams and yet i beat it pretty easily. Butt, i took it because i'm required to do 1 more subject and there's not much option. As for biology, my friends who took that class said it's actually not that hard if you have a good memory, because most of it are just memorizing (there's a lot of it they say). So it actually depends on what u need(or what u want). Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
susanne Posted May 1, 2013 Report Share Posted May 1, 2013 I agree.Unlike Chemistry which you can do Words to The Same Effect, Biology pretty much relies on you remembering the EXACT wording the syllabus gave you;IB's actually a lot of hard work...and bio is a lot of memorization. getting an 87 w/o trying as a freshman is not uncommon, if you don't try in IB HL, you won't be getting an 87 lol. IB's rubric is really precised.can't say for ess. never took it, my school doesn't even offer it. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ibomorelikeibno Posted May 4, 2013 Report Share Posted May 4, 2013 I take both. IB Bio HL is not hard, but it is very heavy in content. Also, harder than ESS.ESS is the easiest out of the three sciences I take which are ESS SL, Bio HL, and Chem HL. So it depends you know.. want a challenge? go for bio i guessAlso, if you take both, they overlap. In fact all sciences in IB overlap at some point which is goood Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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