Economics

Assessment

We currently follow the Eduqas syllabus, which covers the following main topic areas: • Markets and Market Failure: the nuts and bolts of microeconomics – how markets work, why some markets may not always work perfectly and how they can be fixed. We also look in depth at the labour market. • The UK Economy: an essential course in Macroeconomic literacy, covering how we evaluate the overall health of the economy and how the government can influence key indicators like growth, unemployment, inflation and inequality through policy tools. • Market Structures and Business Behaviour: an investigation into how the behaviour of a firm is affected by the amount of competition in a market; here we look at monopoly power, price fixing, and what governments can do to protect consumers. • International Economics: an analysis of how economies interact with each other – trade wars, currency manipulation and exchange rate movements; we also study development economics. There is no course work and all assessment takes place through examinations. Pupils sit on three papers, and each assesses the full course content, designed to test a particular set of skills. Component 1 is a knowledge-based paper with a heavy focus on multiple-choice questions and calculations (30%). Component 2 requires you to draw on the information given in extracts, tables and charts to write short answers and mini-essays (30%). Component 3 is an essaybased paper (40%).