1. Writing Economics is adopting a new language
What's the difference between a change in demand and quantity demanded? What's the difference between money and income? New students of Economics may use them interchangeably, but in Economics speak represent two different ideas.
It is common for students to lament that they thought they've got the concepts down, but if expressed in a different term, will mean differently to a seasoned Economics examiner.
2. Unable to exemplify Economic ideas or concepts
There is a growing trend towards requiring students to bring economic ideas to life. What's studying concepts if you don't apply them to the real world, right?
Having preambles and dictating specific context to questions are the most common ways to test your application skills.
Not being able to fully immerse yourself in that context would more often than not produce a generic answer that lacks application. That would most certainly prevent you from obtaining the highest level of marks available.
Here are few ideas for you to overcome this:
DO YOUR RESEARCH
1. Doing research and compiling a factsheet on essential sectors of an economy would help. These markets include the public transport, housing, aviation, healthcare, education, telecommunication, and energy sector. Your research should be primarily based in Singapore and should contain information such as
What are the few firms that are running such industries?
Are they privatized, government-owned, or a mixture of both?
How have such sectors evolved over time due to changes in government policies?
LEVERAGE ON SOCIAL MEDIA FEED
2. While we use our smartphones to view social media, we can value-add that activity by following prominent news publications on their Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter social media (e.g. Straits Time, The Economist, Business Times, South China Morning Post, Forbes, etc). So while you're checking what your friends are posting on social media, you'll get snippets of key important events at the same time. Effortless learning for the win!
DEVELOPING YOUR CURIOSITY MUSCLES
3. Be a little more curious about the latest trends and topics. A list of examples includes technological disruptors like food delivery services (Grabfood, Deliveroo), Bitcoin/cryptocurrency, autonomous driving & electric vehicles (Tesla, NIO, Lucid), genomic sequencing, ride-hailing applications (Grab, Uber, GoJek), use of drones (Yunnec, DJI), political tensions (Brexit, US-China Trade war). The list goes on and on. Be open to receiving news and events that go around the world.
Having a good grasp of current affairs will help you apply to questions better because most likely the context of the question will be based on current times too.
3. Misuse and/or Lack of Economic Concepts
This is a common pitfall for most students. To simplify things, take for example a question that asks:
"Explain how an increase in income would result in higher overall consumption levels."
A student less versed in Economics would say that "a higher income would raise an individual ability to spend which increases their consumption on items like necessities."
A better performing Economics student would have a different take:
"A rise in income will increase an individual's purchasing power as disposable income raises.
Yd = Y - t - s
where Yd = disposable income
Y = income received
t = taxes
s = savings
They will seek out to maximize their utility on goods and services and would tend to spend more on normal and luxury goods (they positively correlated to income change, 0 < YED < 1 or 1 < YED). Consumers will be induced to consume which generates more demand for more output. As one man's purchase is another man's income, this will further raise the income levels of the economy via the multiplier effect. Cumulatively, this will cause the overall consumption levels in the entire economy to increase.
Key takeaway: Writing an Economics essay starts by developing a proper paragraph of words. Your task in each paragraph is to describe a proper sequence of events rooted in economic concepts.
We know the alphabets and how they are sequenced. A, B, C, D, E... to Z. Students that don't do well are students that either jump the sequence; from A straight to D without B & C, or students that do not explain clearly & correctly with economics concepts why A leads to B to C and then D or they fail to do BOTH! Some students may even jumble up the sequence, starting from D to A to B then C!
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