I believe anybody can improve their grade in Economics A-level. But only if you’re willing to put in the effort required.
For AQA and Edexcel Economics A-level, here are the four most common problems I’ve seen students face:
1) What is the right essay structure?
Do you know how to structure your responses to 25 mark questions?
How about the shorter questions like the 15 markers?
For Edexcel and AQA Economics A Level essay structures, I recommend:
- Decide on an essay structure.
- You can either use a structure given by a teacher, one from the examiner’s reports or from my essay structures here (AQA) and here (Edexcel).
- Do lots of practice questions (past papers, extra practice papers) using those essay structures.
- Get feedback from a tutor or teacher. Then improve your answer. Then do more practice questions. Repeat.
2) How do you evaluate?
A lot of incoming tuition students do not know how to evaluate.
This can be a grade boosting skill for some students.
To improve your evaluation, I suggest the following:
- Look into mark schemes and sample answers for your exam board. Find out what counts as evaluation.
- For sample evaluation points, see the link here.
- Do evaluation-only practice. Practise making your own evaluation points and essay plans for different questions.
- Integrate evaluation points into your full essays. Get feedback and improve your answers further.
3) How do you understand the difficult course content?
Economics can be difficult for a lot of students.
Here are some tips to get your head around the course content:
- Review course notes or videos on the difficult topics.
- If you don’t understand something, ask people until you understand. Teachers, tutors, other students.
- Don’t give up in trying to understand a concept. One misunderstanding can make it harder to understand related concepts. Don’t let misunderstandings build up.
- Practise explaining the concept to others. Also, write essays where you explain the concepts.
4) How to manage time and how to revise
Lots of students run out of time. This is particularly a problem for Edexcel Economics A in papers 1 and 2. But this can also be a problem for AQA Economics. Here are some tips;
- Create time limits for each question. If you exceed the time limit, then consider leaving the question.
- Remember the opportunity cost of spending too long on a question. This opportunity cost is the forgone marks on the following questions, because you didn’t leave enough time for them.
- Do lots of timed practice. This can include full practice papers or past papers. But you can also do timed individual questions.
- For Edexcel A papers 1 and 2, speed up your section A (try to do more quickly than suggested) and reduce time spent on section B. Section B catches a lot of people out and many students overwrite.
- As for AQA papers 1 and 2, make sure to spend no more than one hour on section A. People tend to overrun on the 9 mark questions more often than other questions. But it’s also worth practising 25 mark questions specifically, so you can do these in time.
For revision tips, check out the links here (economics specific) and here (general, you can apply to other subjects too).
Contact me
If you are interested in economics tutoring, you are very welcome to reach out to me at tomftutor@gmail.com.
You can also read more about my tutoring here.
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