A student asked me - how successful were we at predicting the questions / topics for the A Levels?

We did a compilation which extracts what our students from the Class of 2019 said about their A Levels in 2019, you can watch it here --> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnHesxIKFn4

For the 2019 A Levels - we actually predicted "Reverse Globalisation / Deglobalisation" as a concept to be heavily tested even though for the curriculum what you were strictly being tested on is the trends towards globalisation and not the reverse. We predicted most of the Essay questions and 1 of the 2 Case Studies and of course, our students above can tell you more about it. Our students - as a result, had a distinct advantage.

How about the recent A Levels 2020 - Class of 2020?

Let's start first with Paper 1 - Case Study Segment

Case Study 1 - Microeconomics

Students were tested on anti-competitive behaviour, anti-trust laws, specifically focusing on the ride-hailing industry and the on the chicken distributors industry in Singapore - specifically highlighting price-fixing behaviour, effectively a 'cartel' in the chicken distributors.

Did we predict this? Yes!

On our 3rd last lesson of the year, coded ALP8&9, an excel sheet highlighting the themes to study for the Case Study section was flashed to our students.

Here's a cut screenshot of that portion. The first event students were told to study was on Tech giants and anti-trust regulation. Grab/Uber are tech-giants whom anti-trust regulations are actively being applied on.

On our final lesson of the year, held a week before the A Levels, coded ALP12 - I came up with a Case Study of my own to test the students in a Simulated Paper (it's like a Mock Exam where I test students on questions I think will come out).

One of the extracts was about the 'chicken distributors' - the exact issue that was tested at the A Levels. Here's an extract of the case study I let my students do in the last lesson.

Case Study 2- Macroeconomics

If you recall - due to COVID-19 last year, there was a topic 'deleted' from the testing. 14 marks worth of questions were removed from the Macroeconomics case study because of the "Common Last Topic".

But anyway- the entire case study was about the US-China trade war, which if you take a look at the same screenshot - that was the 2nd specific issue/theme that was being predicted.

We actually predicted the issues to be tested for BOTH Case Studies for A Levels 2020 - and did various practices with similar questions.

How about Paper 2 - Essay Section

For copyright issues, I cannot reproduce the essay questions in this email but I can list down what topics were tested for the 6 questions

Question 1 - was about plastics / carbon emissions and how pollution results in market failure. Part b) was about government policies addressing this specific case of market failure.

We told students to prepare for this issue in the Case Study section during the 3rd last lesson of the year (lesson coded ALP8&9) but the issue came out for the Essay section instead. See screenshot below. 

I guess we can count this as a 'half-way there prediction'

Question 2 - was about water shortages and why even after increase in pricing by the government there still would be shortages as well as policies to address such shortages

In the Economics Essence Workshop of 2020 (which btw you can purchase the recorded video lessons + hard copy materials here), I covered 2 questions on shortages-related questions and policies to addressed such shortages, except that we were discussing shortages of eggs in Question 1 and shortages of pork in Question 2. But the skills & concepts coverage are similar.

I think we absolutely nailed Question 2

Question 3 - was about Market Structure characteristics (fastfood restaurant chains) and innovation as a strategy to increase profits

We didn't discuss fastfood restaurant chains, and didn't specifically predict or discuss innovation as a strategy to increase profits.

We did discuss actively in the ALP11 and ALP12 about the food delivery industry

Question 4 - was about fiscal policy (specifically on infrastructure spending) and its impacts on economic growth & SOL

This was specifically highlighted during our predictions lesson (ALP8&9), again the screenshot below shows what we told our students to focus on for the Essay section

We successfully predicted Q4, and also did practice questions, specifically during the last lesson ALP12 where we covered 1 question on Singapore's economic growth & SOL in 1 single question.

Question 5 - was about how ageing population affects the Singapore economically and what are policies to address those consequences.

We covered a similar question in the 2nd last lesson of the year in ALP11 - take a look at a screenshot of the preamble that I used to test our students

Question 6 - was about deflation and which was more damaging- deflation or inflation

We covered Deflation in Question 4 of the Economics Essence Workshop (Macro section)

Effectively - we successfully predicted Questions 2,4,5 &6 (that's 4 questions), and while we predicted Question 1 for the Case Study section, our students still prepared for it.

If you are keen to attend a trial lesson - do note that our J2 classes for this week are full-house. There are around 5-6 slots for our J1 class tomorrow on Firms & Decision at the time of this email, but it will likely be full house as well.

If you would like to book a Trial Lesson for next week at 50% discount for the trial lesson, you can use the coupon code <APRILTRIAL> for 50% off your first trial lesson. The booking page is here --> tuitiongenius.com/trial

We also have a Zoom seminar next week on 17 April 930am - where I'll be taking a full 1.5 hours to share important strategies you can adopt to excel at the A Levels --> you can register for the Zoom seminar here --> tuitiongenius.com/webinar