Best way to learn entire course in a week?

[reg]

Lol, yeah.

What is the best way to learn the course to pick up the easiest/minimal marks in the exam? Rote-learning definitions? So far I have learned the economic objectives very lightly, and can prolly remember most of basic macroeconomic policy, how best should I be spending my time? For a 30 :p.

[brendan]

read the textbook every night and do practice exams.

[Eriny]

Keep up to date with current economic goings-on. Do you know certain parts of the budget, recent microeconomic policies (i.e. labour market reform), monetary policy stance, Australia's current issues with the CPI, external stability (terms of trade, TWI, value of the dollar, the CAD), full employment, skill shortages, national savings, etc. These are the things that are likely to be asked about. If I were you, I wouldn't worry about things that are a bit older like National Competition Policy, Trade Liberalisation (though it wouldn't hurt to know a little about the 2005 Free Trade Agreement with the U.S.), Taxation Reform and that sort of thing. Focus on what's happening in the economy now.

Also, you should know a few aggregate supply/demand factors that are current.

If you look at a past exam, while there are some definition questions, most of them are about economic analysis. You won't get a 30 if all you know is definitions. You have to know how things work.

And how much do you actually know about economics? Like, are you completely clueless or did you keep up to date with classwork during the year? It makes a huge difference.

[brendan]

try to understand:
why the dollar has been risen to all time highs
why the oil prices have gone up and what effect that might have

[reg]

Hi, thanks.
Well, I remember most of the course, but applying it is another question (teacher sucked a bit).

Will they ask about trends upto/including 2007 without including relevant data in the exams?

Also, when you say to have some current factors, does that mean theoretical ones, for example, wage increases -> +AD, or do they have to be concrete real world examples?

[Eriny]

Well, really, theoretical ones are fine, but if you can use current statistics/factors that's even better. It's probably not worth worrying about for two mark questions though, it just gives whatever you're arguing some evidence which (to me, at least) makes answering the question a bit easier.

Often on exams they will ask for current knowledge, policy mix questions, for example, tend to do this. They also have questions like 'Over the past decade...' or 'In the past 3 years...' which would mean that in order to get full marks, you need to actually have some examples of what happened in that time. Usually those types of questions are asked about budgetary or microeconomic policy, but could be about anything on the course.

Remember though, the exam was written in Feb this year, so while you are expected to know some stuff that happened this year, it won't ask for things that happened in the last couple months specifically. It's more likely to ask about general trends or our current economic situation. For example, they asked about the drought in 2003, oil prices last year, and there were questions as well on the participation rate. While you could answer these questions purely on a theoretical basis, it would be really quite difficult to quantify your claims or demonstrate sound analytical skills if you haven't read a little bit about these topics.

You definitely need to do the last few exams, since 2004 at least, to get an idea of what's expected.

[melanie.dee]

they dont really give a shit about whether you can rote learn definitions or not. the questions are about relationships between things, and how and why things effect others. iv no idea how you'll manage learning it in a week. agree it depends how much you've followed whats going on throughout the year, and also how smart/quick to pick up on things and perceptive you are.

you need to be able to explain to the logic of how things effect each other. some of this will be natural/common sense to you if you're generally smart/perceptive. this will make your chances a hell of a lot easier.

if not. you're probably going to have to concentrate on learning some definitions and learning examples of micro policy and get an idea of whats happened in the budget. unfortunately they're unlikely to go ahead and directly ask you to explain these. they'll present you with a situation sort of and ask what could be done budget wise or micro policy wise to achieve a certain aim or something. the only way you'll learn this is to start doing a lot of practice papers.

learning that very simple demand/supply graph stuff you do riiight at the start or in unit 1/2 should pick up possibly a few marks on the multi choice. remember each multple choice is worth 2 marks, so they can be fairly valuable if u can manage a few of those.

i suppose if you really have no idea, you might get some marks on questions by giving a definition of the things involved, like if they ask you to talk about a relationship between 2 things, defining each might get you a mark or two?

[Eriny]

I read on the 2003 assessment report that there are marks available purely for definitions on questions that are worth 6 marks or more (plus for definition questions, obviously). Still, your score won't be all that good if that's all you do.

[melanie.dee]

yeh unfortunately they're arnt really thaaat many 6 mark + questions there.. defining everything in a policy mix question could get you a few marks. and yeh with some of those other bigmark questions.

and if you've got no idea with other say 4 mark questions, not harm defining them and making up some stuff to look like your trying to answwer the question too not just defining, and then hoping you pick up one mark or soemthing.

[AppleXY]

read up on the s. design

[reg]

So I went and did the '06 exam, was able to complete it pretty satisfactorily. Apart from oil prices, what could be some other likely economic issues to pop up on this years examination: cus' I haven't covered it in class/kept upto date myself :p.

[melanie.dee]

drought.. effects of global economy ie especially china.. environment/climate change.. commodities boom.. ageing population.. capacity constraints we're facing..

[brendan]

skills shortage, labour market reform (workchoices), income tax cuts,

[Eriny]

I think growth in China is very likely to be asked about. But drought, climate change, CPI/monetary policy, the value of the dollar (look at the terms of trade and the TWI as well), the net income deficit/CAD, weakness in US sub-prime markets and interest rate differentials, and workchoices are all possibilities. This is by no means an exhaustive list either.

[gulamali]

I think growth in China is very likely to be asked about. But drought, climate change, CPI/monetary policy, the value of the dollar (look at the terms of trade and the TWI as well), the net income deficit/CAD, weakness in US sub-prime markets and interest rate differentials, and workchoices are all possibilities. This is by no means an exhaustive list either.

exactly what you said ... and your other post, outlining all the happenings in the economy, also it may be usefull to read through monetary policy statements given by the RBA .. especially those during the time the exam was written, which i believe was early year ? they give a good idea of what is going on, also somewhere in the 2006 vcaa report, they made mention to the fact that very little students knew what was currently the situation of the economy.

put simply the text book is useless =]