Difference of English A1 HL and SL

[Julie]

What would be your courses if you took English HL? Where do you plan on going to college? How good is your English?

English HL is not that much different from SL if you are a native speaker; it is easy to jump up to HL, but if you are not a native speaker and haven't been speaking for a long time, HL is NOT a good idea. I watched four of my friends (two being not native, and two being native speakers in English) drop down to SL this year. Basically, the difference is: a little bit less reading, one WL instead of two, and guiding questions on the IB exams. These guiding questions are what make the huge gap, in my personal opinion, between the difficulties of English SL and HL.

Well.. I'm a Chinese Singaporean, but my First Language has always been English. I got an A1 for my GCE "O" Levels english paper...but that's quite different from IB english, if not very different... I'm starting IB only this year..which is Grade 11 for the American System. I speak english every day and its the language I've used since I was born..haha.

But yeap, my worry is just the literature aspect. If I work really hard, is it something "learnable"? If it is, then I would love to try out HL english. I want to study in the UK or US, and hopefully do either law/political science/international relations. I am also considering economics for college, but i've heard you need Math HL for that? So I'm a bit in a fix, because its either HL english or HL math, but I need HL english for my scholarship; there's a chance I won't get it.

thanks for the advice though

Hmm... For the scholarship I think English HL is a good idea, you seem like you could manage it perfectly. It is a "learnable" subject meaning that you will learn to recognize meanings behind texts/books, identify literary techniques and narrative devices and stuff easily. I don't know what to tell you about the Math HL. It all comes down to which subject will give you a more beneficial future? What does the scholarship give you vs. what does an economics degree give you

[Aak]

Any tips for any of us taking English A1 SL? I'm okay at english, recently switched from HL to SL. Am aiming for a 5 or 6. Does this sound like a pretty reasonable grade?