Leaving Certificate Economics

Craig - Higher Level 

A nice paper but quite abstract - it was quite difficult to know just what they were looking for. That's how I'd sum up Economics Higher Level 2016. As predicted, there was a focus on elasticity, national income and appearance. Labour popped up as a factor of production and Oligopoly was the market structure.Aside from those topics - we had a very "waffle-able" macro section - whereby a large part of Question 7 was do-able without text book knowledge. Not very typical of an economics exam and for those who did it will either excel or fail terribly - it'll be interesting to see how nice and/or broad the marking scheme is for that section.I took Questions 1 , 2 , 3 and 5. The short questions were handy so I'm not going to go into them.Question one was on Supply and Elasticity. The first question was quite nice, however I blanked on how to show a movement along a supply curve. The part b really demanded personal thinking- a theme prevalent throughout the entire paper. The 2nd part asking if PED was inelastic in the long run - I said it was , because consumers develop a loyalty to the good. Part C was based on personal thinking - this was very welcome.Question two based itself off Oligopoly, as predicted. Most students would have had this and perfect known to a T - the first question was quite unusual but very welcoming. There was however a very abstract question in the piece where it asked to show the curve facing a firm in this market. Now a kinked demand curve is split three ways, kinked, kinked equilibrium, long run kinked equilibrium - I drew the latter two, many other drew the first - it didn't specifically say what was needed but I hope I took the right choice, if it was meant to be the first - this was an extremely easy question.Labour/Employment popped up in Question 3 thank god, and this was quite nice aside from one or two definitions I may have messed up on. Then as the question got on we got to look at trends facing labour in Ireland. I thought this was very good and really rewarded students with a knowledge of current affairs.Finally, National Income was mashed up with employment- this was perfect for those who acted off predictions, as both were topics expected to come up, however if one didn't touch the employment subject, and only focused on national income this would've been a nasty loss of 30 marks. The national income question was pretty handy asking for very basic knowledge. Finally the effect of an oil spill and an increase in child benefit found its way on to the part c - continuing the trend of genuine skill application - this is a very welcome tactic to assessing .And that's it. At this stage I could get 300, 450 or 500 and I genuinely don't care. I'm done and I hope ye have all got something out of reading these blogs.  I'd like to thank ISSU for the opportunity and the work they've done, and opportunities they provide young people with; if you're looking to get involved with them - do!Please note: blog posts reflect the opinion of the author and not necessarily the opinion of the Irish Second-Level Students’ Union. Blogs are updated daily by 6.30 pm on scheduled examination dates.Zeminar is an event for Generation Z, particularly those aged between 15 and 19, and their parents, teachers, mentors and coaches. It will take place from 11th - 13th of October 2016. For more information see www.zeminar.ie