Questions about the Economics 1 IA

[Matt*]

I have an IA due on monday and was wondering somethings.

1-What does it mean by candidate number on the coversheet and how do I know what this number is? (teacher never explained this)

2-For the word count, does the coversheet count as part of the 750 words? And how about any labels in the graphs? (such as "P1", "EQ1", etc)

3-For each part of the IA do we label them? (f.e. Analysis: or Evaluation:)

4-I just want to make sure that I am doing each section of the IA correctly...for one part (economic terminology) we simply define the economic terms that we are going to use in the IA. For Economic analysis we relate these economic terms to the article. (my understanding is that we DONT summarize the article) Then for evaluation, my teacher never explained what to do, so I am confused so please help!

Thanks

Edited October 16, 2011 by Matt*

[dessskris]

1. you can leave it blank first if you don't know your IB candidate number. I'm not surprised it's not out yet, but you can try to ask your IB coordinator what your candidate number is.

2. cover page and article are not counted towards the word count. labels in graphs are counted.

3. no. it must be one whole essay that flows without any heading.

4. you kinda got it... don't forget your diagram. for evaluation, you evaluate the suggestions mentioned in the article (is it good or bad?). if there's no suggestion from the article, you suggest some solutions and evaluate your own suggestions. talk about advantage and disadvantage, short run and long run, different stakeholder.. and justify which solution is best. also criticise the economic theory where appropriate.

[Matt*]

1. you can leave it blank first if you don't know your IB candidate number. I'm not surprised it's not out yet, but you can try to ask your IB coordinator what your candidate number is.

2. cover page and article are not counted towards the word count. labels in graphs are counted.

3. no. it must be one whole essay that flows without any heading.

4. you kinda got it... don't forget your diagram. for evaluation, you evaluate the suggestions mentioned in the article (is it good or bad?). if there's no suggestion from the article, you suggest some solutions and evaluate your own suggestions. talk about advantage and disadvantage, short run and long run, different stakeholder.. and justify which solution is best. also criticise the economic theory where appropriate.

thanks and I am doing mine on an article about the rising costs of electric car charging stations. An example that would work for evaluation could be that since electric cars are becoming more demanded, the demand for gasoline goes down. (since electric cars are becoming efficient and people want to get them)

And I would a supply and demand diagram (if you can use diagrams in the evaluation) that is normal and then has a shift in the demand curve to the left.

Also I was gonna do another diagram about how the price of maintaining electric car charging stations is already expensive and how the electricity cost is continuously going up and theyre raising prices, so I was wondering about how this supply and demand curve would look?

[The Filipino Limner]

So you can make one of the axes for the price of maintaining the charging stations, and the net additional cost for the company due to the price hikes in the y-axis. (This is if your price of maintaining is changing, or else, then, you just need one side!) Hope this helps!

[dessskris]

so many teachers never guide their students really well...

"article about the rising costs of electric car charging stations"

this is how I would do my commentary:

introduction

- introduce what the economic problem is (which is the increase in the costs of whatever that is) and the cause of the problem according to the article (decrease in supply? increase in demand?)

- define relevant economic terms

- mention which economic concepts i will use

body

- plot demand supply diagram showing increase in price

- explain the diagram, relate it to the problem etc

- talk about suggestions from the article on how to decrease the price. if no suggestion, give my own suggestions.

- evaluate each of my suggestion: advantage and disadvantage, short run and long run, different stakeholders

- if there is any special thing mentioned in the article that is unusual (e.g. although tax is already imposed, the demand still cannot fall) talk and evaluate it, try to criticise economic theories where possible. if there's no such thing you don't need to do it.

conclusion

- justify which suggestion is best

[dessskris]

So you can make one of the axes for the price of maintaining the charging stations, and the net additional cost for the company due to the price hikes in the y-axis. (This is if your price of maintaining is changing, or else, then, you just need one side!) Hope this helps!

what is that? I never learnt such thing.

don't draw funny diagrams that your teacher never teach you and your textbook doesn't have.

just draw common diagrams that is being taught in the economics syllabus.

one diagram per commentary will do. you'll have no space for two diagrams per commentary unless they're used simultaneously to explain one same point (e.g. diagram of demand and supply before tax, diagram of demand and supply after tax) because you have very limited word limit and cannot afford explaining two different diagrams unless you don't want to write any evaluation.

[Matt*]

So you can make one of the axes for the price of maintaining the charging stations, and the net additional cost for the company due to the price hikes in the y-axis. (This is if your price of maintaining is changing, or else, then, you just need one side!) Hope this helps!

Never seen this graph so I cant do it lol

So you can make one of the axes for the price of maintaining the charging stations, and the net additional cost for the company due to the price hikes in the y-axis. (This is if your price of maintaining is changing, or else, then, you just need one side!) Hope this helps!

what is that? I never learnt such thing.

don't draw funny diagrams that your teacher never teach you and your textbook doesn't have.

just draw common diagrams that is being taught in the economics syllabus.

one diagram per commentary will do. you'll have no space for two diagrams per commentary unless they're used simultaneously to explain one same point (e.g. diagram of demand and supply before tax, diagram of demand and supply after tax) because you have very limited word limit and cannot afford explaining two different diagrams unless you don't want to write any evaluation.

My teacher said at least 2, up to 3 diagrams. I was gonna use one graph that shows a shortage of the charging stations by drawing the dotted line under neath the EQ and showing that quantity supplied is less than quantity demanded.

I was going to do another graph about how the cost of electricity is rising but i dont know how this would look. I would think it would be a shift in the supply curve to the left but I just want to be sure if you guys could confirm it.

I was also thinking of doing a graph for evaluation (can we do this?) where I would do supply and demand and show how (because of electric cars becoming more popular) that the demand for gas goes down so I would do a leftward shift in the demand curve.

Edited October 16, 2011 by Matt*

[dessskris]

I'd stick with the structure I suggested in post #5... my teacher is a /professional/ IB Econ teacher I must say, and that was following his suggested IA structure which has got his students 7s or 6s.

for the diagram, read your article. what has caused the price to increase? is it the low supply or the high demand? it must be in your article... and then just follow the problem lah. if the article doesn't clearly state it, I bet it hints at it somewhere so you just need to pay more attention when reading it, then you can assume it is the cause of the increasing price.

let's say it's the fall in supply like you said. I'd draw a diagram showing the leftwards shift of the supply curve resulting in a higher price and lower quantity. there's no need to show a shortage because the price has increased already. a shortage would exist if the price had to stay down there (there is a maximum price). but if the price is higher, the demand will fall so theoretically there is no shortage. what is more important is the increase in price because it's the main economic problem in the article.

for the demand for gas, the costs of electric car charging stations has risen so people don't want to charge electric car anymore and people will use more gas instead so yes you can talk about this in your evaluation, but I don't see a need for a graph because it's not the main focus of the commentary and trust me you won't have the space for two graphs due to the word limit. having two graphs but limited evaluation is not good either because you'll need to EXPLAIN each diagram and relate it to the problem. it will take up one paragraph each already so you will have no or little space for evaluation so please just trust me one diagram will do. the gas is not very important either (but you still have to mention it) unless it's the focus of the article.