At its core, an interest in biology or chemistry stems from the same place – a need to understand the world around us. However, in high school’s core, chemistry allows for a more focused understanding with units building upon the one before, while biology covers a wider range of topics that don’t always relate. Although different learners value different styles, chemistry is easier and allows more time for students to grasp concepts compared to jumping around completely different aspects of the subject as occurs in biology.
With course offerings of a wide range of on-level, honors, and AP science classes, students are provided with the opportunity to find their niche. However, an increasing number of students find chemistry’s plug-in formulas to be simpler than the sizable memorization of biology. Sophomore Jess Yielding, a current honors chemistry and former honors biology student, said, “After taking honors bio last year, I’m excited to be out of it. The homework was difficult, and I found many of the concepts to be difficult to grasp, especially since it felt like when I finally learned one thing, it wouldn’t matter anymore and we’d be moving on to the next. It’s easier in chemistry since it’s a lot of repetition allowing time for reinforcement of the concepts and my teachers are more likely to give extra help and retakes since the concepts must be understood well before we move on.”
In middle school, students are instructed to take biology their freshman year and chemistry their sophomore year to cover their graduation requirements, however, some students choose to follow different tracks to take more science courses. Senior Samantha Lau took both honors chemistry and honors biology her freshman year, hoping to get ahead of the curve. After experiencing both classes and going on to take AP Biology her junior year, Lau said, “I knew that biology challenged me a lot more than chemistry ever did. I thought at the time biology was much more difficult, especially since it was virtual and we didn’t get the experience of the in-person labs. Even though I didn’t enjoy it as much as I did chemistry, I knew I could use the extra practice in high school rather than a worse grade in college where I plan on pursuing a degree in STEM.”
On the AP scale, AP Biology is considered a much more complex course than AP Chemistry. In fact, according to the College Board, only 64.4% of AP Biology students passed the most recent exam while 75.1% passed AP Chemistry. Senior Leila Castro, who took AP Biology her junior year and is currently taking AP Chemistry, said, “I took AP Bio last year since I had heard from my older friends that it was harder than AP Chem and I knew this year I was going to need to spend a lot of time doing college applications. I knew I liked taking honors chemistry, and so far I am enjoying the AP course a lot. Last year, AP Bio was a challenge, taking up a significant portion of my outside-of-school time and challenging me to study more than I expected.”
