Question for any economics peeps, gcse or a level. Mark scheme error?

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I have come across something in a gcse past paper which is confusing me. Its paper 1 4ec1/01 of 2021. Question 2a. asks which products has demand that is price elastic. The options are A. -1.5 B. -1 C. -0.5, D. 1. The mark scheme says that A is correct with ped of -1.5. But in my notes from the text book says that price elastic demand equals value > 1. Is this an error in the makr scheme or am i missing something?

Reply 1

doryy1356789

11

Original post

by ideatank17

I have come across something in a gcse past paper which is confusing me. Its paper 1 4ec1/01 of 2021. Question 2a. asks which products has demand that is price elastic. The options are A. -1.5 B. -1 C. -0.5, D. 1. The mark scheme says that A is correct with ped of -1.5. But in my notes from the text book says that price elastic demand equals value > 1. Is this an error in the makr scheme or am i missing something?

PED is always negative. So they are saying that it is >1, which means that the number AFTER the negative sign should be greater than 1. So that BASICALLY means that -1.5, -2, -10294493, or anything that the NUMBER (disregarding the - sign) is greater than 1, is price elastic. Yes this was also on the GCSE past paper so the correct answer here IS A. Hope that helps! If not just keep asking away!

Reply 2

ideatank17

OP

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thankyou for your help, another student is saying the same on another thread

Reply 3

doryy1356789

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Original post

by ideatank17

thankyou for your help, another student is saying the same on another thread

yay happy that im right and that it helped you!

Reply 4

ideatank17

OP

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Original post

by doryy1356789

yay happy that im right and that it helped you!

I just found this from a google search: "Price elasticities of demand are always negative since price and quantity demanded always move in opposite directions on the demand curve. But, by convention, we talk about elasticities as positive numbers. So mathematically, we take the absolute value of the result."

Both of these things, that PED is always negative and that elasticities use the absolute value (a positive value, so negatives are treated as positives). What i find very strange is that neither my edexcel textbook or revision guide contain these points. Thought id post this incase anyone else encounters this perplexing idea.

Reply 5

ideatank17

OP

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just wondering, does PES have the same rules? So is it generally positive and do we take absolute values of PES to determine elasticity? I did a brief google search but nothing explicitly stating this.

Reply 6

doryy1356789

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Original post

by ideatank17

just wondering, does PES have the same rules? So is it generally positive and do we take absolute values of PES to determine elasticity? I did a brief google search but nothing explicitly stating this.

Yes as far as I’m aware PES is the same I think number wise but it’s always positive. Did you have econ gcse today?

Reply 7

ideatank17

OP

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Original post

by doryy1356789

Yes as far as I’m aware PES is the same I think number wise but it’s always positive. Did you have econ gcse today?

okay thankyou, no i pulled out of the exams this year, im an independent student so i pay for my exams. im doing 3 gcse courses with exams next year. economics, sociology and psychology

Reply 8

doryy1356789

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Original post

by ideatank17

okay thankyou, no i pulled out of the exams this year, im an independent student so i pay for my exams. im doing 3 gcse courses with exams next year. economics, sociology and psychology

ooh good luck! honestly that seems less stressful. ive had 14 exams so far! good luck for the exams next year! i love psychology so much.

Question for any economics peeps, gcse or a level. Mark scheme error?

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