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AS OCR Economics 16 May 2016

A bit late but how was the exam? I found it decent - the multiple choice questions murdered me.
Did you do question 17 or 18
Reply 2
Original post by ISpeakWisdom
Did you do question 17 or 18


I did question 17, seemed the easiest of the two. How about you?
Sorry if this is a bit of a late post, but I'm new here and posted my original post in a different thread by accident! Here's my post:

I severely regret doing the 'non-market failure' question over a generic 'subsidy analysis' question (a weird combination of exam panic and interest/surprise at a 20 marker on firm behaviour overwhelmed me...), although I did have loads of ideas on econs/disecons of scale.

Conversely, I struggled to structure it as our teacher didn't expect a 20 marker that is not about market failure to crop up.

Anybody else in the same boat as me? Everybody else in my year - around 18 people - did q17 and everyone on reddit played it safe (although not many 6th formers are active on reddit, it was quite amusing that someone called me a 'f-ing madman.' )
Reply 4
Original post by rebirth61213
Sorry if this is a bit of a late post, but I'm new here and posted my original post in a different thread by accident! Here's my post:

I severely regret doing the 'non-market failure' question over a generic 'subsidy analysis' question (a weird combination of exam panic and interest/surprise at a 20 marker on firm behaviour overwhelmed me...), although I did have loads of ideas on econs/disecons of scale.

Conversely, I struggled to structure it as our teacher didn't expect a 20 marker that is not about market failure to crop up.

Anybody else in the same boat as me? Everybody else in my year - around 18 people - did q17 and everyone on reddit played it safe (although not many 6th formers are active on reddit, it was quite amusing that someone called me a 'f-ing madman.' )


To be honest, with the generic subsidy question you could have talked about 20 things or even more - I included about 4 graphs in my analysis and included at least 3 evaluation points.

Also, in my school, my teacher hasn't really given me a solid structure and I don't think we've practiced as many 20 markers as we could have done. But the basic structure I personally use is:

1) Define (show the examiner that you understand what the key word means - in this case it was subsidy)
2) Explain (give some examples i.e. producer subsidy, consumer subsidy)
3) Analyse (this is where you put all the graphs; comment on how the price, shifts in supply and demand curves and all that changes when a subsidy is placed)
4) Pros & Cons (basically advantages and disadvantages of subsidies)
5) Evaluation (What it depends upon. For instance, the effectiveness of the subsidy depends upon the price elasticity of demand etc.)
6) Alternative methods (i.e. tax on production of electricity, minimum/maximum price controls)
7) Brief Conclusion relating back to the question (i.e."the use of a subsidy can be deemed as an effective method... ")

I think keeping this structure can get you into that A-grade band for your 20 mark essays.This may come in handy for you Macroeconomics exam.
(edited 7 years ago)
I done 17, but for 18 you had to talk about economies of scale.

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