I am certain that anybody can improve their grade in IB Economics, but only if one is willing to put in the effort required.
As the season of final exam. revision coming up, I would like to talk about four most common problems I’ve seen students face and how to sort them out when it comes to Econ revision.
A. What is the comprehensive and communicative essay structure?
Do you know how to structure your responses to 15 mark questions? How about the shorter questions like the 10 markers?
For every Econ exam papers that require essay I recommend:
Decide on an essay structure.
The best is DEEDE
Define – provide a definition of all the terms your answer contains.
Example – give real-life examples or hypothetical situations that illustrate economical terms or processes related to the questions of your Paper 1.
Explain – elaborate on your answer, connect it to other relevant keywords or terms, and explain their interconnection.
Diagram – introduce a diagram that is most appropriate to your answer. It is also critical to explain your diagram (for example, how demand changes based on price/seasonality/competition/shortage of goods/whatever other factor you consider).
Evaluate – applicable only to part B of your Paper, it requests you to provide your own opinion on the matter, detail pros and cons, explain possible consequences of economic actions, etc.
Do lots of practice questions (past papers, extra practice papers) using those essay structures.
Get feedback from a tutor or teacher. Then improve your answer. Then do more practice questions. Repeat.
2) How do I thoroughly evaluate?
A lot of incoming tuition students do not know how to evaluate.
This can be a grade boosting skill for some students.
To improve your evaluation, I suggest the following:
Look into mark schemes. Find out what counts as evaluation.
And check the rule of CLASPP
Do evaluation-only practice. Practise making your own evaluation points and essay plans for different questions.
Integrate evaluation points into your full essays. Get feedback and improve your answers further.
3) How do I understand the difficult course content?
Economics can be difficult for a lot of students.
Here are some tips to get your head around the course content:
Review course notes or videos on the difficult topics.
If you don’t understand something, ask people until you understand. Teachers, tutors, other students.
Don’t give up in trying to understand a concept. One misunderstanding can make it harder to understand related concepts. Don’t let misunderstandings build up.
Practise explaining the concept to others. Also, write essays where you explain the concepts.
4) How to manage time and how to revise
Lots of students run out of time. This is particularly a problem for papers 2 and 3. Here are some tips;
Create time limits for each question. If you exceed the time limit, then consider leaving the question.
Remember the opportunity cost of spending too long on a question. This opportunity cost is the forgone marks on the following questions, because you didn’t leave enough time for them.
Do lots of timed practice. This can include full practice papers or past papers. But you can also do timed individual questions.
Comments