Pretty sure i just failed my economics EC1

..and surely feel like dying in a hole. What i don't understand is how people manage to do so well.. Basically, there's such a wide range of topics to cover that i spent 3 months trying to remember and learn them all, which to me, only seems logical; acknowledging the fact that anything could come up in the test. However, i found myself having to revise the same thing over again; it was kind of like how when you try to carry a lot of things; you drop one thing, pick it up, something else falls, you pick it up etc. I really just want to know how to manage subjects like economics more efficiently where there's a wide specification, but only a few questions out of the specification comes up.. I really thought i would nail this.. I know i haven't though.. :[ I have my EC2 in a few days, maybe i could pull my grades up with that..

are you talking about AQA econ1? mate...the whole syllabus = basic demand and supply, elasticity, basic market failure and government intervention. I just did that exam, it was a piece of piss. Instead of worrying about how much there is to learn try to consolidate the knowledge and take it for what it is, which is pretty simple stuff.

EDIT: the comment above this one is a great piece of advice, memorisation won't work in this subject. It's important to keep in mind the fundamental economic proble, and that economics is the study of economising, literally. We want to determine the best course of action which makes best use of our scarce resources.

Back when I did Economics in my IGCSEs, I realised that simply memorising topics or trying rote learning would lead me to failure.

You have to realise that Economics is centred around certain key concepts. For example, if you increase interest rates.... Entrepreneurs are less likely to setup businesses as they can't get cheap financing. People may be tempted to deposit cash in banks to reap high returns.

Decreased spending will decrease demand. Lower demand will mean a decrease in prices.

You could go on to debate aggregate demand, the effect on demand pull inflation, unemployment, the social effects of unemployment, aggregate demand and so on and so forth.

In conclusion, understand the fundamental inner workings of the economic machine and apply it to the necessary questions.

I hope I've helped.

Make a list of the major topics.
Summarise them.
Define important terms.
Write advantages and disadvantages of each policy.

Learn the exam technique.

Thank you, but i do understand all of this. It's just that with economics, there's always something creeping up that you've never seen/ heard of despite attempting to learn an entire student booklet. :[

mate.... i did a different exam. It was WJEC EC1... there was one 2mark question on elasticity and a 2 mark question on d/s... it really wasn't simple.. Even though I'm aware this isn't a subject you can merely memorise, i do actually understand it when it's all in front of me, yet once i'm sat in an exam i believe there are slot of things you have to remember and understand. Trust me if this was a test on understanding, i'm pretty sure i wouldn't be in this position right now.. I'm glad your exam went well. Thanks for your reply.

mate.... i did a different exam. It was WJEC EC1... there was one 2mark question on elasticity and a 2 mark question on d/s... it really wasn't simple.. Even though I'm aware this isn't a subject you can merely memorise, i do actually understand it when it's all in front of me, yet once i'm sat in an exam i believe there are slot of things you have to remember and understand. Trust me if this was a test on understanding, i'm pretty sure i wouldn't be in this position right now.. I'm glad your exam went well. Thanks for your reply.

If you find you're lacking in terms of past paper practice.... Take a look at this exam board's papers :

Click Here

Plenty of papers with all the mark schemes. Also, files with the extension _er are examiner reports.

Take a look at them. Read the mark scheme. Talk to yourself aloud. Get in the mood of drawing on information from in from all over the syllabus.

Good luck

I can tell you that ped was 0.4 and that question for bricklayers .... supply increased and demand decreased.

I pretty much feel like dying in a hole after each of my exams this year. I don't know this year isn't good, or my new schools exam hall is pure bad luck but each of my exams has gone terrible

..and surely feel like dying in a hole. What i don't understand is how people manage to do so well.. Basically, there's such a wide range of topics to cover that i spent 3 months trying to remember and learn them all, which to me, only seems logical; acknowledging the fact that anything could come up in the test. However, i found myself having to revise the same thing over again; it was kind of like how when you try to carry a lot of things; you drop one thing, pick it up, something else falls, you pick it up etc. I really just want to know how to manage subjects like economics more efficiently where there's a wide specification, but only a few questions out of the specification comes up.. I really thought i would nail this.. I know i haven't though.. :[ I have my EC2 in a few days, maybe i could pull my grades up with that..

why do we tie so much importance to exams, that we feel terrible when we don't achieve as high as we wanted? I mean, they're just exams at the end of the day, you need to pick yourself up, move on, ready for the next one.

why do we tie so much importance to exams, that we feel terrible when we don't achieve as high as we wanted? I mean, they're just exams at the end of the day, you need to pick yourself up, move on, ready for the next one.

And OP, they really aren't impossible. When you get the hang of economics exams, they become easy (well maybe not easy). Get your teachers to help you. You'll find that it's not just about remembering everything, it's not a science exam. But it's about being able to discuss, being able to understand the complicated concepts. Being able to use the economics terms confidently. And these are all learnable skills.

I'm assuming you're doing OCR's economics.

When you're revising for unit 2, think about the effectiveness of policies rather than just all the factors of aggregate demand for example. I mean, when will you get into the test and have to recite all of those? - be able to expand on a handful of them. Think about the last question. It's always going to be about a particular policy, or about a particular objective or problem that the government want to rectify. Then think about what you might say to counter the argument. If you don't evaluate, you're stuck at 12 out of 18. One evaluative point, you're at 14 out of 18 almost without a doubt.
And use the economics terms, say inflation, balance of payments. But also say things like sticky downwards, productive potential, government information failure, the multiplier effect, marginal propensity to invest invest.

It is doable.

edit: oh Wjec, oh well the same thing applies.