Is Physics SL hard?

[6ix god]

Hey everyone! I want to take Chemistry HL and Physics SL next year when I enter IB. I just wanted a heads-up on the workload. Also, do you need to be insanely talented at math to do this combination. If you do this how difficult are you finding it on a scale of 1-10.

 

my signature is outdated, just saying

[udvuvvdu]

Hi,

Of course 'how easy it is' depends on your personal preference and way of thinking. I am taking Physics HL and I find it to be one of the easiest among my other subjects however quite many people in my batch dropped physics to other science subjects within the first two months.

You do not need to be insanely talented (or even really) talented at math to do well in physics, HL or SL although it helps to be so. The course of physics is designed to not incorporate advanced math (such as calculus) and revolves only around basic algebra. Most of the questions in the test require you to incorporate and understand a lot of concepts and you will be asked to do lots of logical deductions to show or prove something. I'll say that it's not hard but some of the questions are tricky and require you to think very far, IB physics requires you to strongly understand the concept instead of just remembering equations.

 

For HL, I'll give it a 5/10 in difficulty as I find it easy but i also find it "just the right difficulty for high school science" and however challenging.

For the SL topics, maybe a 3/10.

Edited December 19, 2015 by udvuvvdu

[willsurvive]

Do not take Physics unless you are really into it. You would assume that SL easier but its really not. In my school the real difference is in the amount of content they cover: HL covers more. But everyone in that Physics class is complaining 24-7 so unless you are in love with Physics don't take it 

[Abubla]

I take chem HL and physics SL and for the first year of IB i found that chemistry HL was much harder than SL physics. But now that I've covered my whole syllabus and having my mock exams this week I've realized that physics SL is pretty hard as well. I personally haven't put enough effort into these subjects and I sort of slacked off the whole year and now thats really come to bite me in the arse

 

So, Physics SL is manageable provided you put the right amount of time into it and read the textbook properly unlike me. I've managed to obtain a Predicted 5 in Physics SL but my teacher even told me that a 5 wouldn't reflect my actual grade in the final exam and he says he'd expect me to get a 3 or a low 4 in reality. (but my IA helped me out here)

As for math, other than re-arranging equations and determining ratios between two things it doesn't get much harder than that, there are also vectors which shouldn't be much of an issue.

[merging]

Only take it if you love it- a lot.

[El :3]

I took physics HL and I loved it! It covers aspects of physics I find to be much more interesting than SL. I guess it is down to what you're interested in and passionate about, however I find SL to be quite manageable if you're competent with basic algebra and problem solving. Half the time it's just a matter of applying various formulae and you get a formula book anyway. There's not too much theory to memorise (I mean there's a bit like every subject, but I found a lot of it was logical anyway and intuitive).

 

Difficulty for HL physics: about 3 or 4 out of 10

 

Feel free to send me a message if you want to discuss physics :)

Edited January 10, 2016 by El :3

[pppraz58]

Yes, as many people say, it is down to what you're interested in and passionate about. 

 

People usually worry about the memorization of the formula, but you have formula booklet so it's not a big deal. 

 

The ideas are usually quite simple to understand, though the hard part is the recall of these ideas under exam condition. 

 

My reflections from the IB physics course could be, 

 

1. definitions are important. (memorization)

 

2. actually spend some time to study the concept (do the problems)

 

3. practice explaining with scientific vocabularies (it helps IAs as well)

 

Biology, Chemistry, Physics. None of them is actually easy, so it's really up to your interest and comfort zone. 

 

I chose physics instead of biology since I just cannot afford those memorization of the process and vocabularies.

More ideas from chemistry are involved in biology then in physics, as first year of IB biology is basically bio-chem. (according to my science teacher)