OCR Economics F585 June 2012

Will admit Groat, from a teacher's perspective your A* is in the bag. Great to work with you on this exam!

How did you feel about the exam? I was pretty pleased I'd guessed all but 2a as possibly questions. People are making a big deal over the fact it said export ban, but I continued to discuss quotas anyway.

Not quite sure that the exchange question was made clear on the specification or textbook though. What would you have said?

You too! As I said, let's hope your help wasn't so awesome that the grade boundaries rocket.

Honestly, I liked it. I think the kids got stuck on questions being asked in a different light. I knew the PPP exchange rate was coming up which is why I alerted you all to it. I would've said that the productivity gains in the USA may reduce the weighting of the American argument and also Chinese inflation may do so too.

To be honest with you all, I have been teaching this exam for two years and am actually off to Beijing to teach in China this September. I could give you the longer story, but will save you the details. It's been my pleasure to help everyone succeed and I wish I could've reached more of you earlier and hope everyone gets into their university choice and if not...well that was what was meant to be!

Think beyond the facts, accept little as truth and always challenge something if you disagree. That's all I can say.

To all of you, I wish the best.


Mr. Ahmed

Chunkyjooj I cannot even say how much you helped me with this exam. I knew all the theory but I had no idea how to apply any of it to the type of questions but then I saw your videos and some time in the middle of when you were going through extract 2 everything just clicked in place and I could do anything from the potential question list. Thank you so, so much you're literally the reason I'm getting into university!

Hey mate, that's all you! A good teacher is simply a catalyst that demonstrates to the student what they can do. I'm very happy to hear you understood my extracts, but it all comes back to you. Well done and go do big things at university, but remember to always give back somehow - there is no greater feeling.

Mr. Ahmed

Hey mate, that's all you! A good teacher is simply a catalyst that demonstrates to the student what they can do. I'm very happy to hear you understood my extracts, but it all comes back to you. Well done and go do big things at university, but remember to always give back somehow - there is no greater feeling.

Mr. Ahmed

APT managed to guess every question but the convergence of exchange rates!

I think this thread is about to die so here's some advice for anyone who searched this thread in 2013 from someone that just took it:
- The theory isn't at all too hard to understand. Refresh your AS knowledge make sure you understand things in class and there'll be little to know (compared to unit 3 at least).
- But that doesn't mean this is an easy paper! Actually understand the extract and do further reading if you need to. Most of your revision should be applying everything you know to potential questions.
- atp > tutor2u > classroom resources > zig zag
- all the packs are amazingly useful anyway, I'm not sure it's possible to pass this without at least one of them
- Don't spend too long planning questions in the exam. Most questions have high marks and I guarantee that even of you're a touch typist with extra time, there will not be enough time if you know everything.
- Threads like these are more useful that typing up notes. Collaborative learning I think it's called -- just actually read what other people are saying and don't answer questions off intuition alone though!
- There came a point for me at least where I knew all the theory but everything clicked into place. I could see that this didn't happen for anyone else in the exam room, save an oxbridge Don and someone who had seen the teacher privately to go through the extracts. It's not hard though, it just kind of happens when you're applying your knowledge to the stuff
- Other subjects it possible to put off until the week before the exam, but start thinking at least about this a month before.

Sorry if that sounded stuffy and it's just my experience at least.. Anyway best of luck!

Very good advice.

So the number one thing to do is learn the syllabus.

THEN apply it. Some started the other way round i.e. went through the case study in minute detail.

What were the actual questions in the exam?

1a) Two benefits of inflation targeting. (4)
1b) Analyse using a diagram why the UK is experiencing inflation despite spare capacity. (6)
1c) Comment on the extent to which inflation in China is advantageous.
2a) Suggest and explain two reasons why there has been a divergence between China's nominal and real exchange rates. (4)
2b) Analyse why the interest rate is not an effective control of inflation under a fixed rate exchange regime. (6)
2c) To what extent is the ISEW a useful indicator in measuring sustainable economic development? (10)
3) Discuss the case for China to ban exports of raw materials in 2015. (20)

Apparently the export quota diagram isn't wrong but the odds are that people used it to refer to China's economy and not the global economy's supply. Do you think the grade boundaries will fall because of this?

Who said it's wrong?
I used it to represent world supply falling.
I said, China imposes a ban and supply will go inelastic.

So instead of a diagonal line for S, i got a partially diagonal line then it turns vertical.



Like this:

My lines were Sw without ban, Sw with ban, and Dw, i think.

Nobody said that the world supply didn't fall...
I said that if you drew a export quota for China it would've been wrong as they didnt use an export quota, but an outright ban.

I didn't use the export quota diagram, even for the global supply O.o
Do you think I'll lose many marks? I said China should use an export quota, not a ban, in the last evaluative paragraph on potential alternatives.

OMG for the ISEW question I mainly focused on China -.- damn!!!

I went through like 3 factors of the ISEW and applied it explicitly to China for the comment I refered to china too

Does anyone know what 1a,1b and 1c questions were, if you could quote me in your response would be great, cheers in advance. Tom

Apparently the export quota diagram isn't wrong but the odds are that people used it to refer to China's economy and not the global economy's supply. Do you think the grade boundaries will fall because of this?

I'm pretty sure 2)c said "Comment on the case for adjusted measures such as the ISEW being beneficial for China in appraising development" or something along those lines - I think they key thing here being "such as", at least when I read the question in the exam I don't think it said "just the ISEW".

Now I'm worried...

See Groat's post just above




I think you're right but that's really a trick question I found out that the question was talking about the proposed ban from 2015, not the quota that exists right now so talking about quotas is flat out wrong :/



The Human Development Index and the Happiness Index would be other examples. The facts are the same though -- they can't possibly take into account every measure of development, they give equal weighting to different measures and they're made for comparison with other countries, when better measurements would be subjective to China.

Who said it's wrong?
I used it to represent world supply falling.
I said, China imposes a ban and supply will go inelastic.

So instead of a diagonal line for S, i got a partially diagonal line then it turns vertical.



Like this:

My lines were Sw without ban, Sw with ban, and Dw, i think.