Economics how to write a good paper 1?

[Karolina.jj]

My mock exams are coming up and our teacher did not prepare us at all for paper 1, which we will write in a week time. My classmates' and my problem is that we are not able to write p1 properly, how to structure it and what to do exactly... Can you please help me figure out what to do? thanks in advance

[Masoomali fatehkia]

It has been a while since I did my economics exam but I hope I can give you some good advise. Generally for paper one the questions are essay type and consist of two parts a and b.

 

Part a of the question usually asks you to demonstrate your knowledge of some concept and its applications. You need to identify what concepts the question addresses and then take it on from there. I will try to illustrate what I mean with an example question from the SL paper 1 2013 specimen paper: "Suggest reasons why the price elasticity of demand for cigarettes might have a different value from the price elasticity of demand for foreign holidays." Here you can identify the concept as being Price elasticity of demand. So your response should include the definition of PED. Now you need to see what things related to PED is the question asking you about. Here you have two different goods with different PEDs so the question is particularly interested in the range of values that the PED can take and also the factors that influence it. So in your analysis you need to explain that PED can have a range of values from 0 to infinity. Explain what the likely range is for each of the two goods mentioned above and what it means: Cigarettes have price-inelastic demand (PED < 1) (which means that the quantity demanded is not very responsive to price- changes in price lead to proportionately smaller changes in quantity demanded) while foreign holidays are likely to have price-elastic demand (PED > 1). Now you need to suggest reasons for their different PED values which means you need to mention the factors that influence PED and explain how each of these affects the PED value for the two goods. These factors can include the "necessity of the goods", "proportion of income spent", "availability of substitutes", about three should be enough given the time limitation that you have. So overall, to structure your response, you can start with a definition of PED and explain that it has different values. Then give the example of the two goods mentioned in the question, say what their PED values. Then you can mention the reasons they have different PED by referring to the factors influencing PED and explain how it affects each PED of each good.

 

So in general for part a) you need to identify the concepts and the areas related to it. See what terms you might need to define and what areas related to that concept you need to explain. Then apply the concept in the context of the question (in the above question you had to apply your knowledge of factors influencing PED to explain why to goods have different PED values). Also include one or two diagrams whenever possible (in the above case you could draw the possible demand curve for each good when you explain what their PED values are).

 

Part b) is more evaluative in nature in the sense that you need to apply your knowledge of economic concepts that you used in part a) to evaluate some outcomes of a decision/policy or to discuss the pros and cons of some economic concept. Let me again illustrate this with an example. Question: "Examine the usefulness of a knowledge of price elasticity of demand to firms and governments". Here you need to mention the use of PED for two different entities: firms and governments. Firms use PED for determining how to increase total revenue while governments need it to make tax decisions. So a possible approach is to start with applications to determining how total revenue changes with price for different PED values. As for governments you can discuss applications to deciding whether to tax a good or not. You need to explain how taxing goods with different PED values affects the quantity consumed and also the tax revenue earned. As this part is based on evaluation you need to include some evaluation of possible implications of taxing a good with high PED (low tax revenue and possible loss of employment as output is reduced).

 

So in general for part b) the command term ("discuss", "evaluate", "explain") should guide you as to what is expected. For example if you are asked to "evaluate" you need to discuss the pros and cons of that particular concept and what the possible results can be. If it is to "discuss" you need to give both sides of the matter and see what the is good/bad about each. In the example I gave, you were asked to "examine" so you had to structure your response around explaining how the knowledge of PED can be used to guide government decision to tax and firm decision to increase/decrease prices. 

 

My final advice is to identify the key points and concepts in the questions and make a rough plan of what you need to cover in your response (It is quite similar to how you would write your essay in a literature paper) then start writing out the essay. Make sure to include definitions of terminology that you use and include diagrams to illustrate the point where needed. Make sure to plan your time well since you don't run out of time on the last questions.

 

I hope you find my explanation useful and good luck on the exam!