Do you need to be good at Math?? (1 Viewer)

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Hey everyone,

in yr 10 and have chosen economics for the HSC as two of my units. Unfortunately however, I am having second thoughts. My maths isn't great, I like to think I am more English based rather than Maths. I am doing Advanced Math, but not sure how confident I am with math which may result in me dropping to Standard if the need be.


Any advice on the level of maths involved in Economics?


Thanks

 

[Life'sHard]

The maths is extremely basic in economics. You should be fine with doing economics if it's only the maths that worries you.

 

[fuzi]

The maths is extremely basic in economics. You should be fine with doing economics if it's only the maths that worries you.

100% agree, never been any difficult maths HSC economics, if you wanna do econ in uni tho, thats a different story

 

[ExtremelyBoredUser]

Hey everyone,

in yr 10 and have chosen economics for the HSC as two of my units. Unfortunately however, I am having second thoughts. My maths isn't great, I like to think I am more English based rather than Maths. I am doing Advanced Math, but not sure how confident I am with math which may result in me dropping to Standard if the need be.


Any advice on the level of maths involved in Economics?


Thanks

If you are competent enough to know that

X = 1/y can also be expressed as y = 1/x

and

Know that X + Y = Z can also be expressed as Y = Z - X

and

How to use a calculator for calculating fractions etc.

and

An area of a rectangle is given by length x breadth, an area of a triangle is given by 1/2 bh (for tariff diagrams which are super easy to learn and really the hardest "math" part IMO because it might get confusing but that only appears in topic 1.

You should be fine. No insane trig, no stats, no analysis, vectors etc. (not uni economics), heavy focus on the application side of eco, you should be more worried on your ESSAYWRITING skills as well as how you study for eco than maths - thats where the difficulty lies.

 

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Thank you so much everyone for the replies. i will stay with Eco and see how it goes! Does anyone have any prelim and HSC notes?

 

[Trebla]

Thank you so much everyone for the replies. i will stay with Eco and see how it goes! Does anyone have any prelim and HSC notes?

Have you checked out the Notes and Resources section of this site?

 

[avicidal]

seriously the hardest questions you would come across with regarding about math is which components of the balance of payments should be in deficit or surplus, and the national income questions which is just change in consumption / change in national income which gives your mps

 

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Have you checked out the Notes and Resources section of this site?

I did but couldn't find anything too great...

 

[Image.jpg]

seriously the hardest questions you would come across with regarding about math is which components of the balance of payments should be in deficit or surplus, and the national income questions which is just change in consumption / change in national income which gives your mps

Care to explain further?

 

[fuzi]

Care to explain further?

So in Year 11, you'll learn about the circular flow of economy in terms of the 2, 3, 4 and 5 sector models of the economy. This comes back later in Year 12 where you learn to do some basic calculations involving finding the equilibrium income based on the leakages/ injections approach or aggregate demand/ aggregate supply approach. It may sound complicated now but trust it is very straightforward when you get to it!

The second part with the Balance of Payments is something you learn in year 12, where much of the course focuses on Australia's relationship with the global economy. The Balance of Payments (BOP), simply put, is a record of all of Australia's final transactions with the rest of the world, or the money flowing in and out of the Australian economy with the rest of the world. It has two main accounts, the Current Account and the Capital and Financial Account, and each one contains a number of sub accounts within them based on the type transaction (i.e. Goods, interest payments on debts, etc). Again, sounds complicated now, but please don't stress, it's quite straightforward. When it comes to Balance of Payments calculations, your main job for the HSC is really knowing which account falls on which side of the equation (Current Account side or Capital Account side) and really just being able to add and subtract and also knowing that both accounts added together should sum to zero (hence the name Balance of Payments, it does this for some fun economics reasons that'll learn later on ).

Anyways, hope that helps and that it didn't put you off Econ lol. If there's anything you'd like to know more about don't hesitate to ask

 

[avicidal]

Care to explain further?

yeah basically what Fuzi said, you wouldn't need to worry about this too much now, as you will get the hang of it by the time youre in year 12

 

[mmmmmmmmaaaaaaa]

The most 'difficult' maths has to do with MPC and MPS, they can get a bit tricky

 

[Twifulds]

It can also be pretty bad.