A State Ranker's Guide to Economics (Part 2) (1 Viewer)

[mreditor16]

solid effort/10 guys

Thanks heaps Drifting

An absolute god! I was panicking because I have my half yearlies next Thursday and still have those grey areas. This thorough guide really relieved some pressure!

Haha glad to hear it helped, astab

 

[sy37]

This just motivated me to study eco again right now, thanks. I particularly like how you emphasise not writing notes which imo is useless and a waste of time in a subject that is all about applying theory.

 

[mreditor16]

This just motivated me to study eco again right now, thanks. I particularly like how you emphasise not writing notes which imo is useless and a waste of time in a subject that is all about applying theory.

Thanks a lot for the feedback, sy37!

 

[astroman]

Can you apply the knowledge and techniques above to other commercial studies subjects, i.e. Business Studies?

 

[mreditor16]

Can you apply the knowledge and techniques above to other commercial studies subjects, i.e. Business Studies?

That's a tough question to answer, because I never did any of the other "commercial studies subjects". So, frankly put, I have no idea. But general study techniques should be able to be applied in such subjects.

 

[mreditor16]

Bump for the Year 12s approaching the end of their school holidays!

 

[mreditor16]

BUMP!

 

[AAAAB]

Quick question:

You're really fortunate to have had completed economics a year early. It relieved you of all the stress and pressure in getting a subject out of the way and doing it well.

But do you think that you would've studied the same way had your school not offered accelerated. Would've you made any adjustments to the way you studied economics? You know, juggling what could've well been 13 units.

Great guide by the way!

 

[milkytea99]

This guide IS AMAZING!!! THANKS A LOT! It does bring a lot of helpful insight and useful tips!

 

[laters]

This guide is fab, thank you!

Just a question: I see that you've colour coded your highlighting. What did you use each colour for?

 

[mreditor16]

Quick question:

You're really fortunate to have had completed economics a year early. It relieved you of all the stress and pressure in getting a subject out of the way and doing it well.

But do you think that you would've studied the same way had your school not offered accelerated. Would've you made any adjustments to the way you studied economics? You know, juggling what could've well been 13 units.

Great guide by the way!

If I had studied Economics in Year 12, I would spend much less time on it tbh. Maybe, due to less time being available, the number of supplementary resources I would consult and utilise would be less, and also the number of times I would revise would be a bit less due to the juggling of 13 units! Overall, yes the quality and quantity would have to deteriorate, due to time constraints....

This guide IS AMAZING!!! THANKS A LOT! It does bring a lot of helpful insight and useful tips!

No worries, glad to help!

This guide is fab, thank you!

Just a question: I see that you've colour coded your highlighting. What did you use each colour for?

Tbh I just randomly highlighted and maybe in my head, there was some logic to the underlining and bolding etc, but there is no formal system I used haha. Just wanted to emphasise the key points...

 

[mreditor16]

BUMP!

 

[mreditor16]

BUMP!

 

[Ekman]

Query for you mate. I always seem to struggle with the essay component of economics. That is, my marks tend to hover around 15-16/20, which, according to my teacher, means that I'm nailing the basics. But I still don't know how to breach the 17+/20 barrier for extended responses; I have short and concise paragraphs, statistics and diagrams and explain my stuff in the clearest way possible; yet this hasn't improved my overall essays which is annoying lol. So what does it take for my eco essays to reach the A-range?

And an addition to this question, how do you manage your time well for essays, because if we were to write everything the board of studies expects us to write about, it would take at least 50 mins-1 hour.

 

[Drifting95]

And an addition to this question, how do you manage your time well for essays, because if we were to write everything the board of studies expects us to write about, it would take at least 50 mins-1 hour.

What's wrong with that?

In my hsc, i did the mc in 10 min and short answer in 50 min so i had 1 hr for each essay. I would then spend 10 min planning each essay and write for 50 mins.

 

[iStudent]

Query for you mate. I always seem to struggle with the essay component of economics. That is, my marks tend to hover around 15-16/20, which, according to my teacher, means that I'm nailing the basics. But I still don't know how to breach the 17+/20 barrier for extended responses; I have short and concise paragraphs, statistics and diagrams and explain my stuff in the clearest way possible; yet this hasn't improved my overall essays which is annoying lol. So what does it take for my eco essays to reach the A-range?

Perhaps upload your essay here and we can comment?

 

[iStudent]

Query for you mate. I always seem to struggle with the essay component of economics. That is, my marks tend to hover around 15-16/20, which, according to my teacher, means that I'm nailing the basics. But I still don't know how to breach the 17+/20 barrier for extended responses; I have short and concise paragraphs, statistics and diagrams and explain my stuff in the clearest way possible; yet this hasn't improved my overall essays which is annoying lol. So what does it take for my eco essays to reach the A-range?

How many words does your essay have? 800? If so, you might consider increasing it.
Short and concise is good - it saves you time, but I don't think it earns you marks (this isn't english, lol). Also, your essay might not be as "concise" as you think it is. If you're only bringing in 2-3 arguments, then that is not enough. What you want in your essay is content - addressing every point there is. One of my essays had 8 body paragraphs (I think???) - in any case, it is a lot - because I tried to cover every point I could think of (including the random ones that just popped in my head).

That's what eco essays are about. content. content. content. (and that's what markers look for!). I think that's the most common pitfall of most students - only dishing out 3-4 pages is not good enough!

If you don't believe me, check out some of the exemplars from ARC. I opened a random essay: http://arc.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/standards-packs/SP02_15110/ - and it had 15 (written) pages!

edit: perhaps find other exemplars/responses by past students/sample essays from past papers and compare and contrast theirs with yours. That's what I pretty much did to find out what it takes to do well

 

[Ekman]

How many words does your essay have? 800? If so, you might consider increasing it.
Short and concise is good - it saves you time, but I don't think it earns you marks (this isn't english, lol). Also, your essay might not be as "concise" as you think it is. If you're only bringing in 2-3 arguments, then that is not enough. What you want in your essay is content - addressing every point there is. One of my essays had 8 body paragraphs (I think???) - in any case, it is a lot - because I tried to cover every point I could think of (including the random ones that just popped in my head).

That's what eco essays are about. content. content. content. (and that's what markers look for!). I think that's the most common pitfall of most students - only dishing out 3-4 pages is not good enough!

If you don't believe me, check out some of the exemplars from ARC. I opened a random essay: http://arc.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/standards-packs/SP02_15110/ - and it had 15 (written) pages!

edit: perhaps find other exemplars/responses by past students/sample essays from past papers and compare and contrast theirs with yours. That's what I pretty much did to find out what it takes to do well

I can write at least 8-9 pages with broken up paragraphs in my body of my essays, however my issue goes back to my previous question, time. I spend 50 minutes on my essay trying to get all the essentials down while skimming/mentioning some extra points. The reason why I asked about time allocation in the exam was because my teacher said we should write essays in 35-40 minutes.

 

[iStudent]

I can write at least 8-9 pages with broken up paragraphs in my body of my essays, however my issue goes back to my previous question, time. I spend 50 minutes on my essay trying to get all the essentials down while skimming/mentioning some extra points. The reason why I asked about time allocation in the exam was because my teacher said we should write essays in 35-40 minutes.

I spent approx 1 hour on each essay. 35-40 minutes is not enough time for me to get everything I wanted to say down :/
Also Hawk, aim for at least 1.2k if you want to secure A range. If everything you wrote is relevant (and that you're not just repeating points that you make, lol), it should be pretty hard for markers to not give you that...
I think that's how you stand out from others (since most of the arguments that you include will be the same as others + there's not really a *band 6 statistic* that really pulls the quality of your essay up). Most would probably write 800 words (or less). By writing more, you impress the markers

 

[iStudent]

the comments said that my fiscal policy essay tended to repeat points but that was because i wanted to relate back to the Q as much as possible. but i got rekted regardless

how do i not repeat myself, do i just say as much crap as possible or something

Your linking sentence shouldn't be too long. Something like "Thus, ___ is a way the government manages economic growth" should suffice (provided you explained the stuff in your paragraph, ofc.)
I got the idea from others here, but I'll just repeat what they said.
Paragraph structure can be something like: (e.g. for a question on how fiscal influences employment) - this is the style that I write in at least.
1. Make a point (e.g. Fiscal policy can influence employment levels through tax rates, as higher tax rates can promote reduce employment)
2. Explain the point. high tax rate -> less profits -> employers maintain margins by cutting costs -> reduced employment - 2-3 sentences
3. Stats (1 or 2). make something up about how a high tax rate in 2009 caused a reduction in employment by x - 1-2 sentences (i usually do 1)
4. Linking sentence. Thus, one way fiscal policy can influence employment is through tax rates. (linking sentence is somewhat the same as your topic sentence - this is what my teacher said about it anyway).

Oh, and just on that point (just to highlight how you can cram a lot of content into this), you can then stretch it into international employment (hence bringing in topic 1), fiscal's effects on inflation, fiscal's actual policies that influence the economic microeconomically etc etc. Just think of everything inside the syllabus and somehow link it into your question (within relevance ofc.).