This year's H2 Economics Paper was somewhat the norm of today's Economics. Through touching on contemporary issues, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the weakening of once powerful economies, this year's papers are an epitome of the assessment objectives of syllabus 9757. Albeit some questions seemed quite confusing, the questions were relatively manageable and similar to that of previous year's questions.
Paper 1
This year's case studies were contemporary and hot off the press. Through analysis of several economic issues including the TPP and the growing Chinese economy, it proved that 9757 is a syllabus used to test 21st competencies to A Level students.
The first question was a pre-dominantly microeconomic question on the Beef industry in Japan. Through analysis of the beef industry in Japan and its rivals, it proved to be an effective case study to test demand/supply, market structure and market failure. Strikingly, this year's case study seemed to have little mention of market structure (though short analysis of market structure could be embedded in the 10 mark sub-question).
Major downfalls that candidates could have done is through the confusion between 'quantity demanded' and 'demand' for the question that requires students to calculate and explain the result of Cross Elasticity of Demand on revenue, price and quantity. Cross Elasticity of Demand involves shifts in the demand curve but is calculated using quantity and price. Candidates could perhaps be confused and use the wrong 'quantity demanded' term for the analysis instead of 'demand'.
Secondly, it could also be noted that the lack of analytic rigour could be ubiquitous among the various JCs/CI in Singapore for H2 Economics students. Perhaps from how the 2016 paper was set, this year's students may fail to render effective economic framework for the questions requiring a discussion and evaluation, worth 18 marks altogether. However, if a student were to abide by the analytical framework given by their tutors and their lecture notes, these concerns should be in nought.
The second question discussed the growing strength of the Chinese economy. Again, contemporary. A student that has kept himself up to date on contemporary economics should have an edge in this issue.
Predominantly macroeconomic, this case study discussed the growing Chinese superpower through the standard of living, macroeconomic indicators, macroeconomic policies and touched a bit on globalisation. It was a balanced analysis of the macroeconomic, which touched a bit of the microeconomy in China and other countries.
The main issue with macroeconomy is the possible lack of contextualisation. Evidently, macroeconomics is more rigid and standard in analysis and rigour. However, students may get carried away with these formulae that were prudently done beforehand and lack context in accordance with the question. The best students are through that would use the context in their favour and use it as a beginning or ending as a form of evaluation within the main content paragraph and not just use this at the conclusion for evaluation.
Overall, this question was a typical macroeconomic question, much to the contrary to the 2016 Paper.
Paper 2
Paper 2 was an interesting paper for this year. It proved to be 'psychic', as mentioned by some candidates. As the papers were actually set two years in advance, some said that Cambridge had telepathy to set some of the questions!
This year's questions all required the evaluation of economic policies, which was quite striking to some students, given it has never occurred for many years of A Level H2 Economics examinations.
All of the questions were set reasonably, with Q2, Q3, Q4 and Q6 being the more popular questions. Most of the three questions done by questions permutated among these three questions, with Q1 and Q5 seeing a lower percentage of candidates attempting them.
Though Q1 seems to be tough, it is inevitable the first chapter of our new syllabus, 'The Central Problem of Economics'. If a candidate were to regurgitate the entire framework with correct flow and coherence, they would be awarded full credit for sub-question (a). Sub-question (b) seems daunting, but it is actually one of the easiest questions to answer. Merely evaluating the pros and cons of any microeconomic or macroeconomic policies from Market Failure or Macroeconomic Policies respectively with proper context would award a candidate full credit for this question. A possible conclusion/evaluation for this sub-question could be the comparison between policies of microeconomic and macroeconomic scale and weighing which is more effective policy to do so. That could award a candidate a full 5 marks for Evaluation.
Q2 may award a candidate a full 10m for sub-question (a) if they used the proper analytical rigour that has been emphasised by past year demand and supply question. The 'inflation' in Q2 could seem daunting initially but is basically the price in our microeconomic analysis. Using policies such as quota, subsidies and taxes would be sufficient to score for this question, along with proper evaluation with economic analysis.
Q3 was the question that struck candidates the most, with it being the question with the most number of the candidate attempting. MRT is a merit good to the government. The possible hazard that a candidate can gain from attempting this question would be to classify MRT as a good with negative externalities, in light of the Joo Koon Train Collision and Flooding Incident. These hazards would be more appropriately listed as the Private Marginal Cost, though.
Q4 is the easiest question to answer, by far. The three main types of unemployment are demand deficient (cyclical) unemployment, structural unemployment and frictional unemployment. Just by analysing the various causes of unemployment with proper economic analysis, candidates may already pass the question. Evaluate three different policies and you could score full marks for the 20 marks content. Evaluate with great depth at the end over which economic policies are the best and when they are the best.
Q5 was seen as the second hardest question to do, given the heavy contextualisation to Singapore. However, it is actually a very easy question to do. For this question, just by writing three paragraph on how the standard of living, cost of living and macroeconomic performance through permutation and combination would give a candidate 10 marks easily. The policies that could have been used are the commonplace macroeconomic policies, and also trade policies. Contextualisation with respect to Singapore would secure high marks for this question. Evaluate properly and 5 marks will be yours for evaluation.
Q6 is on basic macroeconomic policies and globalisation. The challenges of this question are similar to that of Q5. It is a manageable question.
