[AQA] - Economics Unit 1 January 15th - [2013]

No I'm fairly certain the answer was A, the opportunity cost was greater at X than at Y. Because looking at the diagram if you mark on a one unit increase in cars at each point the gradient at X is less than the gradient at Y so more vans are lost.

The answer for 14 is DEFINETELY B

The Rationing Function is a way to decide who gets what is produced DUE to scarcity. Therefore the answer which fits the best is B as it is a way to 'deter' and stop consuners from devouring thenstick as not everyone can afford it.

Its not C or D as C mentioned changes in market conditions...well it's not even a change in price....so how?
D says it makes shortage worse. When did the question mention shortage? If it does make it worse, whats the use thw function? The fundamental use of the R function IS to decide who gets what due to your ability to pay up

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Agreed the answer to 14 was B. We went though the multiple choice with our teacher last week, I'm not sure whether they've already been posted but if you would like me to post the answers just ask .

The one on the opportunity cost is definitely A. Could you please answer my following question, i have posted around 10 times and no one has seemed to reply back. i am really worried about this exam, i only managed to get 17-19 in the otqs so could you please tell me how many marks i should get for the long answers:

5 mark:
Marginal private cost is the extra unit of costs added that are associated with negative externalities. They are additional costs to the original.

8 mark:
Extract do illustrates that the price percentage change for sugars increased throughout the timeperiod with the exception of 2004 and 2005. Conversely the percentage change of fruits decreasedfrom the start 7.8 percent to 3.5in 2010.

Additionally the price change of sugars was more constant And less volatile, the greatest gap between two years was 4.5 percent. However the price change of fruits were more volatile, fluctuating more frequently,reaching its highest 8.5 to -2 in a space of two years. This is probably due to the fact that it is a commodity.

12 mark:
Supply for processed food shifts out, due to a subsidy.I drew the graph shifting out and lowering the price. Is said that this impacts demand for junk food as soya beans rice etc are healthier substituesbto to junk food, and by subsidising prices for healthier food decrease, incentivsing consumers of the decrease in p ice, hence demand for junk food decrease and raises its priceeven further. I also defined demand and supply.

Please tellme how many marks I would get forneach of these, I am seriously anxious so I will be waiting. Please be as realistic as u can and don't give me higher marks, if you feel sympathy

Thanks

The one on the opportunity cost is definitely A. Could you please answer my following question, i have posted around 10 times and no one has seemed to reply back. i am really worried about this exam, i only managed to get 17-19 in the otqs so could you please tell me how many marks i should get for the long answers:

5 mark:
Marginal private cost is the extra unit of costs added that are associated with negative externalities. They are additional costs to the original.

8 mark:
Extract do illustrates that the price percentage change for sugars increased throughout the timeperiod with the exception of 2004 and 2005. Conversely the percentage change of fruits decreasedfrom the start 7.8 percent to 3.5in 2010.

Additionally the price change of sugars was more constant And less volatile, the greatest gap between two years was 4.5 percent. However the price change of fruits were more volatile, fluctuating more frequently,reaching its highest 8.5 to -2 in a space of two years. This is probably due to the fact that it is a commodity.

12 mark:
Supply for processed food shifts out, due to a subsidy.I drew the graph shifting out and lowering the price. Is said that this impacts demand for junk food as soya beans rice etc are healthier substituesbto to junk food, and by subsidising prices for healthier food decrease, incentivsing consumers of the decrease in p ice, hence demand for junk food decrease and raises its priceeven further. I also defined demand and supply.

Please tellme how many marks I would get forneach of these, I am seriously anxious so I will be waiting. Please be as realistic as u can and don't give me higher marks, if you feel sympathy

Thanks

Ok, I'm not a teacher I'm just an AS-Level student so don't take my word as gospel. We've been through it in class so I will try to give it my best shot;

12 mark:
Right well I'm not sure this is necessary but we've been taught on these questions to always start off by defining supply and demand, it's an easy 2 marks, so you've got that.
Ok from the the looks of things your graph sounds to be about correct, so as long as you've labelled the S and D curves and the axis, shifted the S curve the correct way and marked on the equilibrium prices you will have got 4 marks.
Then you give reasons for the shift occurring, each worth 3 marks. However it appears as if you've got a bit confused, soya bean, corn...etc are NOT substitutes for processed food, it tells you in the question that they are used in the production of processed foods. So in fact this means D for processed foods increased due to lower production costs meaning the fast food can be sold cheaper, so 0 there. You also didn't explain the shift by saying "At the old equilibrium price..." there was excess supply meaning the prices are competed down and clearing out the excess supply.

Damn I didn't realise that the subsidised goods like soya are used in processed foods! I defined, said shift to right in supply of soya/healthy food etc will cause a increase in demand for healthy food, may cause a decrease in demand for unhealthy foods as the op cost may be greater to consume healthy foods...

Yeah I almost put that but we got our question papers back to go over and I very nearly made the same mistake, as it does sound as if soya beans are healthy. So long as you did everything else correct and explains why the shift changes the price and stuff you should only lose 3 marks.
I worked out that I got 21/25 in the M/C and 25/25 in the first 3 D/R questions so 46/50 hopefully my essay is good enough to get me an A!

I got loads of A's and B's in the multiple choice I rushed through them though, really need a A in economics...that was my resit I'm doing A2 now...

I can give you the multiple choice answers if you want? Yeah I'm wanting to go on and do it at uni. It was my first economics exam, I was surprised how pushed for time I felt in the exam. Had about 15 mins left to do the 25 marker.

Ok, I'm not a teacher I'm just an AS-Level student so don't take my word as gospel. We've been through it in class so I will try to give it my best shot;

5 mark:
The MPC is the cost to the firm/consumer of producing or consuming one extra unit, it does not take into account the cost to society (negative externalities) it only takes in the cost to the producer/consumer. e.g. to produce bricks firms only need to consider the cost of wages, raw material, rent...etc. And they don't consider external costs e.g. pollution.

I think what you've described in yours is the marginal social cost, so I'm afraid it's most likely you will get 0 for that, although some mark schemes have been generous and give maybe 2 marks if you describe a similar thing which can be confused easily. i.e. PED and YED.

2/5

8 mark:
I cannot give you a definitive answer here because there are quite a lot of things you can describe. We were taught that you get 2 marks for stating the significant change and then 2 marks for using the data, then you just repeat that so you get 2 lots of 4 marks.

I would think your second paragraph is fine and would obtain 4 marks, however I'm afraid that in the first paragraph you haven't compared the data which I believe it asks for in the question so it would gain 0 marks.

4/8

12 mark:
Right well I'm not sure this is necessary but we've been taught on these questions to always start off by defining supply and demand, it's an easy 2 marks, so you've got that.
Ok from the the looks of things your graph sounds to be about correct, so as long as you've labelled the S and D curves and the axis, shifted the S curve the correct way and marked on the equilibrium prices you will have got 4 marks.
Then you give reasons for the shift occurring, each worth 3 marks. However it appears as if you've got a bit confused, soya bean, corn...etc are NOT substitutes for processed food, it tells you in the question that they are used in the production of processed foods. So in fact this means D for processed foods increased due to lower production costs meaning the fast food can be sold cheaper, so 0 there. You also didn't explain the shift by saying "At the old equilibrium price..." there was excess supply meaning the prices are competed down and clearing out the excess supply.

6/12

So overall you got 12/25 and if you add on the 19 from the m/c, it gives you 31/50 and depending on your 25 mark essay I would say this is maybe a B/C??

Feel free to disagree with any of my points, as I said I'm not a teacher or an examiner, this is just my best judgement from what I've been taught and from doing past papers. Hope this has helped a little bit, if your worried I would suggest to see your teacher about this and he/she may have a better judgement than me and may give you a more definitive answer.

Yeah same I have applied for economics. No thanks don't want the answers cause it'll annoy me cause I rushed through them.

For the 25 marker i flipped up aswell

defined few things -

Did a merit good diagram of healthy foods - said the external benefit can be subsidised to reduce the price. No market failure as the price mechanism includes the external benefit? Forgot to say no excess demand !

Against I did the functions of price in a free market - dont work as more likely to increase demerit goods but high price can increase supply of healthy merit goods.
Functions of price - Merit goods under consumed, market failure, resources miss allocated.

Overall - tax hits people on lower incomes more as they spend a higher proportion of income on tax. Not sure if i said that this is a market failure as it leads to an unequal distribution of income. But I wish I did say that!
Min price might cause secondary markets to open, makes gov intervention ineffective.
Therefore subsidy (I think) increases consumption over LR - from extract 1 theres a big SR increase from 2000 to 2001 but then decrease which suggests it occurs over LR. Supplys inelastic (have to grow+harvest) - so increase in qty will occur over LR.

I used gov failure, market failure throughout...

Wish I used more diagrams though and mentioned that Denmark have stopped the tax!!

What do you reckon of that?

Yeah that sounds pretty decent to me, you sound like you got a bit of evaluation in their and thats what they like, also did you use the data because otherwise you cannot get higher than 21?

I didn't have enough time to do any diagrams but I basically talked about govt. putting tax on fatty foods, increase price reduce consumption etc. then I said it may not be effective due to inelastic demand curve so a very big tax has to be imposed and firms may object. Mentioned a subsidy on healthy food, so increase consump. and lower price. But then said could lead to govt. failure from costs. I think I talked about more advertising but not in much depth and I said the govt. could leave it to market forces and through RSI, but then more profits are made in processed food, so firms would move their resources into that, meaning there would be a misallocation of resources. Overall I think I voted in favour of govt. intervention because there was market failure in the market like negative externalities of fast food and unproductively and costs to the NHS and stuff.

If anything I think my essay has let me down slightly, the hindsight of what I should have added is killing me! Hopefully get around 17/18 on it.

If you don't mind me asking where have you applied to? And what kind of stuff do you recommend doing like EPQ, what do unis tend to look for. I have some work experience lined up this summer for a week down in London working in Barclays Capital in Canary Wharf which I'm really looking forward to.

Yeah that sounds pretty decent to me, you sound like you got a bit of evaluation in their and thats what they like, also did you use the data because otherwise you cannot get higher than 21?

I didn't have enough time to do any diagrams but I basically talked about govt. putting tax on fatty foods, increase price reduce consumption etc. then I said it may not be effective due to inelastic demand curve so a very big tax has to be imposed and firms may object. Mentioned a subsidy on healthy food, so increase consump. and lower price. But then said could lead to govt. failure from costs. I think I talked about more advertising but not in much depth and I said the govt. could leave it to market forces and through RSI, but then more profits are made in processed food, so firms would move their resources into that, meaning there would be a misallocation of resources. Overall I think I voted in favour of govt. intervention because there was market failure in the market like negative externalities of fast food and unproductively and costs to the NHS and stuff.

If anything I think my essay has let me down slightly, the hindsight of what I should have added is killing me! Hopefully get around 17/18 on it.

If you don't mind me asking where have you applied to? And what kind of stuff do you recommend doing like EPQ, what do unis tend to look for. I have some work experience lined up this summer for a week down in London working in Barclays Capital in Canary Wharf which I'm really looking forward to.

I would have written D for 2. Competition drives prices lower, and therefore doesn't allow much growth. But I'm not sure

Good good....
End of I cba to read this argument on what was right "it was b" "it was c"...
Who cares? It's one mark

The paper is gone,
All the bet everyone.


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