BY EUGENE TOH

As Economics is a spanking new subject that most students only take at the A Levels, there exists many different common misconceptions that students have about the subject.

I’ll share about the three most common ones.

#1

“Economics is a memorisation subject - I just need to ‘memorise’ essays to get an A”

A student was sharing with me on a ‘trial lesson’ she attended with a tuition centre which engages relatively young undergraduate tutors to teach A Level Economics.

Her takeaway from that trial lesson - Economics is a subject that you score well in by memorising certain paragraphs, plug and play words. The lesson was largely premised on that.

I was pretty horrified hearing that.

Consider the following A Level Essay question from the 2018 paper:

The proposed Cross Island MRT line would run through the Central Catchment Nature Reserve. An alternative route going round the reserve’s southern edge would preserve Singapore’s natural heritage and serve a much larger number of residents. The Land Transport Authority, LTA, says that the alternative route would entail longer travelling time, higher costs, more land acquisition and possibly bigger engineering challenges.

Source: The Straits Times, accessed 24 March 2017

a.  Explain what needs to be considered when a government makes rational spending decisions about such projects.  [10]

b.  Discuss whether the government should proceed with the proposed alternative route for the Cross Island MRT.  [15]

That’s 1 question you cannot prepare for with a rehearsed answer.

A Level Economics requires an understanding of the underlying concepts tested - not simply a ‘hard’ memorisation of the content

It is actually true that you could do quite well in A Level Economics by memorising - in the 1990s and early 2000s in my time when there was actually a MCQ section taking up 20% of the total score. I remember doing the TYS thrice - and I scored 30/30 for my actual A Level MCQ.

That’s not true in today’s context.

To excel in the A Level Economics paper today, you need to understand the concepts, and critically apply them to contexts that are based on the real world.

The chances of you writing a rehearsed answer and the rehearsed answer actually hitting all the key points to get both an L3 and a high evaluation score is really low.

Exposure to a wide range of real-world issues and how the theory learnt can be applied to them

These are just some issues tested in recent years A Level Economics papers:

1. Competition between Grab-Uber

2. Chicken cartel in Singapore

3. Increase in water prices in Singapore

4. Ageing population in Singapore and how it affects the budget

These are actual real world issues - and it would be highly advantageous for students to have discussed these issues before during Economics classes.

Beyond reading lecture notes & textbooks - you need to expand your reading list and knowledge to include current real world affairs pertaining to economics issues. You cannot just simply ‘memorise’ standard essays and expect to be able to use them.

In many of our classes - the discussions that took place mirrored the actual examination questions that appeared at the A Levels.

#2

“I should drop from H2 to H1 because it is a lot easier”

At the end of each year, I will usually have a couple of JC1 students who would come to me, asking me for my opinion on this - “should I drop from H2 to H1?” 

I will always ask them “why” & and they would often cite one of the 2 following reasons:

“H1 Economics” is a lot easier than H2 Economics

This is true in terms of scope but not in terms of the level of difficulty that questions can be.

H1 Economics omits the 2 following major topics, “Firms & Decisions” & “Trade & Globalisation”.

Many students struggle with “Firms & Decisions” but there are relatively fewer students who would think that “Trade & Globalisation” is a difficult topic.

Thus - there is some truth in this, if we are looking at the absolute amount of content tested in H2 vs H1.

Yet - the difficulty level of the questions actually tested at the H1 level, is actually not too different from those tested at the H2 level.

“I suck at Essay-writing - so it would benefit me to drop from H2 to H1”

In addition, the H2 case study paper consists of two case studies of 30 marks each. There’s typically one 8m question and one 10m question which are essentially ‘mini-essay questions’. 

The H1 paper on the other hand, consists of two case studies of 45 marks each. There are more 8m, 10m and even 12m questions.

The skills required to answer these questions are similar to those required of answering essay questions.

You will still need to practise ‘essay-writing’ even if you drop to H1!

There are good reasons for dropping from H2 to H1 Economics - but just be mindful that dropping to H1 does not mean that the paper will be easier or you can ignore essay-writing.

#3

“Case studies are just testing on your comprehension skills - I should just focus on case studies if I’m not doing well in essays”

I’m active on reddit once a year - during the A Level season, as I’ll usually share my solutions to the case study paper on reddit.

I’ve come across one such remark where one student was commenting to another, ‘case studies are testing you on comprehension skills - so just focus on case studies if you are not doing so well in essays’.

This is actually inaccurate. You have to focus on your essay writing - let me explain.

For H2 Economics, 60% of your marks go to the Essay section. There are 3 essays, which effectively mean that each essay is worth 20% of your total grade! 

40% of the marks are accounted for in the Case study section. There are 2 case studies of 30 marks each. However, 18 out of 30 marks will usually be your ‘mini-essay questions of 8m and 10m.

This means that 60% of the case study section will also require essay-writing skills. 0.6 * 0.4 = 24%

A whopping 60% + 24% = 84% of the paper actually requires essay-writing skills!

Don’t dismiss the importance of developing good essay-writing skills.

What we do at ETG

We place a deep emphasis on understanding the subject matter - in the current curriculum, you don’t quite memorise your way to an A.

During content lessons - students are taught how to apply the theory learnt to both real world issues as well as potential exam questions.

You will also be exposed to a wide range of different exam questions and taught frameworks on how to tackle different question types.

There’s a reason why we have been the top A Level Economics tuition programme since 2007! If you would like to improve your Economics grades and find out more about how our lessons are like - you can always book a trial lesson with us.