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WJEC Economics

Hey

I need a bit of help. Looking over the specification for the WJEC A2 economics syllabus it seems that for the macro-side the paper(s) only includes:

Unemployment
Inflation
Economic Growth

I realise that these are very broad & dense topics but i've just been looking over my notes/materials for the year and it doesnt seem like much. Feels as if i'm missing a whole chunk of the course :confused:

So could somone kindly outline the specification in more detail please
E.g "unemployment - Phillips curve, types etc" just so I could get a little more detail on what to revise.

At the moment im stumped

Reply 1

dwking

Unemployment:
Definition
Causes and charateristics - here you need to know they types such as keynesian, classical, frictional, structural these are the main ones and how they come about
Costs - just need to know disadvantages of unemployment
Alternative approaches to reduce unemployment - for this only two questions come up these are 'should the government increase spending to reduce unemployment?' or 'should the government cut taxes to reduce unemployment'. You probably should learn abit about supply side policies here aswell.

Inflation:
Definition
Causes of Inflation - Here you need to know demand pull, cost push and the quantity theory of inflation (MV = PT).
Costs of Inflation - This question comes up quite a lot in the form of 'should the governments main economic objective be to control inflation? Discuss' so basically you need to say about the costs of inflation
Alternative approaches - For this you need to know the advantages/disadvantages of interest rates as this question is often asked, interest rates come up a lot in EC4. Then if its an essay question you want to examine alternative approaches e.g. supply side, fiscal

Trade off:
This is just to know the phillips curve, showing how shifts in AD cause a trade off. But then you need to know that it may not cause a trade off due to NAIRU and AS shifts.

Economic Growth:
Definition
Causes
Advantages and Disadvantages
Also, they often ask the should economic growth be main government objective or should the government cut taxes/increase spending to boost economic growth.

Reply 2

NavalChicken

OP

Thanks, all that information is really helpful :smile:

Hopefully i'll be able to work out an revision structure based on it.

Can I also ask, what methods do you use to revise? what revision guide/text book etc

Thanks

Reply 3

doogie88

1

Hey there,

I'm doing WJEC Economics, Units 4, 5 and 6 in the next few weeks (with Unit 4 & 5) on Wednesday. You don't see many people doing WJEC Economics, so, how does everyone feel about Units 4 & 5? What topics and areas have you looked at and revised most? Are you confident?

Personally, I feel that I should be okay and I just need to build on the A that I got at AS level in Economics - easier said than done I know!

Regards,
Doogie

Reply 4

dwking

Hey I'm also sitting the exams next week, I feel pretty confident about competition and the macroeconomy but not so much about trade and development and I think its going to come up in EC5. I like the topic but I'm worried we'll get another Korea paper where they basically ask really vague questions so you don't know exactly what they're looking for, unlike competition where you can just tick the boxes so to speak. EC6 is nice, same questions always come up if you look at the past papers. I think i should be okay (hopefully) nice to have the marks to build on from last year giving me a nice cushion, just hope nothing to vague or tricky comes up.

Reply 5

doogie88

1

Hopefully all the papers should be straight-forward. If a development question does come up, just use the resource material they give you (if its EC5) and what I think works best is evaluate the type of economic development that the country uses, i.e. export-orientated growth or import-substitution and compare with other types of development.

Reply 6

doogie88

1

Oh by the way, any predictions for what questions may come up in EC6?

Reply 7

dwking

Hope this might help, it's all the questions that have come up in EC6 since the new syllabus, the same questions come up all the time - again development they vary it a bit more. Yet, it is always questions 1 and 2 - competition; 3 and 4 - macroeconomic issues; 5 and 6; trade and development.

EC6.doc45.1KB

Reply 8

doogie88

1

Thanks a lot for the help. By the way, offered some input to your question about how government and consumer borrowing could effect the UK economy! :smile:

Reply 9

dwking

Yer cheers mate thats helped alot, it comes up quite a bit about consumer borrowing but there aren't any notes anywhere not even the great tutor2u. I always talk about more vulnerable to interest rates, external shocks, not sustainable and sucks in imports but then i get stuck and when its like a 12 marker i thought there should be more.

Anywho my predicitions for EC6 are
1 and 2 - Perfect Competition and Privatisation
3 and 4 - Govt cut tax/increase spending to reduce unemployment and some sort of trade off question
5 and 6 - Free Trade and the Balance Of Payments (Very much doubt another Euro question is coming)

Reply 10

doogie88

1

No problem about the help and the predictions look a distinct possibility. Would hate a perfect competition question though I think. Although, come to think of it, maybe it wouldn't be as bad :rolleyes:

By the way, I've sent you a PM containing my MSN.. feel free to add me and talk economics/WJEC or whatever if you like!

Cheers and best of luck! :smile:

Reply 11

NavalChicken

OP

Do any of you have the 2002 mark scheme?
I've done a few of the papers from that year but dont have the mark scheme to check up on how i've done!

Reply 12

doogie88

1

Predictions for EC4 and EC5?

Can't help with the mark-scheme sorry ^^

Reply 13

dwking

I'm thinking trade for EC5 possibly europe or doha related, with some nice oligopoly and interest rates questions for EC4, especially interest rates, with whats been going on recently. WJEC like to make it topical

Reply 14

NavalChicken

OP

Did you learn all of the diagrams for Business economics?
Our teacher told us we probably didnt need to, but i've just found that a lot of mark schemes include it!

Reply 15

dwking

For competition the diagrams i've learnt are:
Perfect competition - short run/long run
Monopoly -
Perfect competition vs monopoly (using just supply and demand)
Monopolistic competition
Kinked demand curve
Economies of scale

Think thats about it, how about you doogie?

Reply 16

doogie88

1

Perfect competition

Short-run:- super-normal profits at first, new entrants, lowers price.
Long-run:- new entrants and lower prices mean; lowers demand curve and lowers MR/AR as a result, so only normal profit made (costs covered).

Monopoly - making large, super-normal profits and not allocative or productive efficient.

Oligopoly - kinked demand curve - elastic at lower output, inelastic at higher output, market operates at agreed equilibirum, no gain or loss of market and little to choose between competitors.

Economies of scale - fixed costs spread over increasing output, i.e. £10,000 for a telecommunications mast, number of customers to start off with is 5000, cost of using service is £2, customer numbers rise to 10,000, reduces cost of using service to £1.

I've also looked at price discrimination!

Doogie

Reply 17

dwking

You know for price discrimination, how do you show it? Do you do it with two different elasticities of demand? or two seperate demand curves e.g. off-peak and peak?

Reply 18

dwking

Also, you know you were saying about evaluating alternatives to development policies. Which ones would you use? At the moment I just know export-orientated, import substitution, FDI and privatisation, are there any others that you use?

Thanks

Reply 19

doogie88

1

You know for price discrimination, how do you show it? Do you do it with two different elasticities of demand? or two seperate demand curves e.g. off-peak and peak?

Correct, that is how I show it, i.e. off-peak and peaktelephone call charges.

Also, you know you were saying about evaluating alternatives to development policies. Which ones would you use? At the moment I just know export-orientated, import substitution, FDI and privatisation, are there any others that you use?

I use; export-orientated, import-substitution, attraction of foreign investment, privatisation (linked to free-market/export lead which can also be used), as well as protectionism (linked to ISI).

I know that this is a really simple question, but what are the main advantages of monetary policy in your view? So far, I've got; allows aggregate demand to be controlled and to either boost output or decrease it - linked with inflation/unemployment/exchange rates and being independent from the government (Bank of England sets rates) so there is no political involvement. Cons of course being; time lag, investment lowered, non-redistributionary and cannot help stimulate AD in deflation periods.

Cheers,
Doogie

WJEC Economics

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