Picking which GCSE subjects you’re interested in doing is one of the first major decisions any of us ever make. For some people, their parents make that decision for them. Others receive a nudge in the right (or wrong) direction from friends or teachers. And a few get no guidance at all. Regardless, it feels as if you’re opening the door to your future, and rightly so – Year 9 is the first time most people properly think about what sort of career path they want to go down. But with such a differing amount of enthusiasm and a wide range of skillsets taking each subject, it raises the question – which GCSE subject is the hardest?
Personally, I’ve always been in favour of saying that any MFL (modern foreign language) is the most difficult to master for GCSE. With seemingly endless vocabulary and grammar to learn, it often feels like you’ll never be able to hold a conversation with a classmate, let alone a native speaker. And when you finally feel as if you might understand something in class, the unthinkable happens. You start a new topic. Despite being a supposedly popular and useful choice, I’ve never met anyone who retained their chosen language speaking skills for more than a few years, past the basics.
Many (unsurprisingly) disagree with my choice. English and Biology were most commonly accused of being ‘impossible’ subjects which ‘made no sense’.
One student said, ‘If English wasn’t mandatory, I would drop it. It’s so, so hard. I don’t get how to annotate things properly, and no-one ever tells you. I just highlight random things or copy someone. Worst topic by far.’ The creative writing parts of English received quite positive reactions, however, and some said that it was the only part of the subject that interested them.
An unexpectedly popular response I got to my question was that the difficulty of a topic entirely depended on how entertaining it was. It makes sense, to some degree. If you enjoy something, you’re more likely to pick it in the first place, and far more likely to listen and engage more in class, therefore furthering your understanding. It’s also hard to enjoy a topic if you consistently get low marks and feel stressed whenever you’re in class. But you have to ask – does the enjoyment affect the difficulty, or is it the other way round?
I don’t think this debate will ever truly be settled. People will always be naturally drawn to different subjects, so it’s impossible to get an unbiased conclusion. Also, anything can ruin a subject for you, from having an awful teacher to just never really understanding it. You just have to keep in mind that no matter how difficult things get, the pain will pay off on results day.
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