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Economics HL Paper 3: structure of paper's questions


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Hi everyone, 

I was wondering if in the HL econ paper 3, will there always be one question on micro, macro, or international we can choose from? I've done some practice papers, and this seems to be the case, but I couldn't find if that was true based on the economics guide. 

Therefore, does anyone know if that is the case? I'm asking because I can considering to skip studying the micro paper 3 information, and then focusing on the macro and international questions in the paper. My exams are in two weeks, so I can still study the micro section, but don't have a lot of time to do so. 

Please let me know if you know anything about this or have any ideas/comments to my approach!

Thanks, 

Isabella

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There won't really be development questions (apart form the rare 4 mark question on an aspect of the Development Syllabus). But because there's no calculations involved in that section of the syllabus, focus on Micro, Macro, and International calculations. 

On your final exams, Paper 3 will be right after your Paper 2, so the night before it's highly advisable to focus revision on Macro and International, given the major overlap they have over the two assessments. Development is something you should revise as well, but a lot of it is arguably "logic" and essentially boils down to empowerment of women, environmental sustainability, education, and healthcare. It's really just the aid vs trade and development aid that are whole new content that you would need to revise.

Usually, the Paper TENDS to have a Micro, Macro, and International question. But that's hardly for certain – you might end up with 2 Micro or 2 Macro questions. It's unfortunate your exams are in 2 weeks, but you'll need to find a way to cover as much of the syllabus as possible – focus on breadth over depth at this stage. Try to be able to perform most of the calculations e.g. subsidies, tariffs, quotas, taxes, demand and supply, exchange rates, price controls. You can forget about national income statistics and CPI and just hope they won't appear given their presence already in past year papers. 

Best of luck! 

Edited by IB`ez
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Hi,

Just to clarify things, here is a summary of past paper 3 questions - to the best of my knowledge - since the new (2013) exam structure was introduced:
 

May 2013

  1. Micro
  2. Macro
  3. Micro

Nov 2013

  1. Micro
  2. Micro
  3. Macro

May 2014

  1. Macro
  2. International
  3. Micro

Nov 2014

  1. International
  2. Micro
  3. Macro

May 2015

  1. Micro
  2. Macro
  3. International

Nov 2015

  1. Micro
  2. Micro
  3. Macro

May 2016

  1. Micro
  2. International AND Micro
  3. Macro AND Micro

Nov 2016

  1. Micro
  2. International
  3. Macro

Based on the above, you can see that there is no rule that a question will necessarily contain exercises from only one given syllabus section. It is also clear that there is a very strong Micro presence (sometimes 2 questions out of the 3), which is not a surprise as the IB suggests 60 hours more teaching time of Micro HL than of SL (for Macro, this is only 10 hours, for International it's 20, and there is no difference for Development between SL and HL with respect to suggested teaching time).

That said, I suggest that you definitely revise Micro in depth if you'd like to score well in paper 3.

Hope this helps.

All the best,

Daniel
EconDaddy - IB Economics teacher and tutor
www.econdaddy.com

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Hi Daniel, 

Sorry to bother you, but I was reviewing the monopoly and oligopoly graphs and was wondering if there is a rule that the MR and AR curves must start at the same point/on the y-axis. This is because the two textbooks I have (cambridge and oxford) each do it differently, and I'm not sure which one is right!

If you could shed some light on this issue, I would really appreciate it!

thanks,

Isabella

 

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Hi Isabella, 

No, there is no such rule :). If you have functions (btw for MR the IB does not want you to know the function), then mathematically they should start from the same point on the y axis. In the exercises, however, if you think about it, at the first unit produced the MR should be equal to AR so it should start at the same point, but not on the y axis. However, you're not required to draw them all the way to the point where they would meet, so it is acceptable that they don't start from the same point. What is important is to make sure that the MR is steeper (in reality it should be twice as steep as AR=D, but this is not a requirement by the IB either).

Let me know if you have any questions and feel free to have a look at my exam tips: http://www.econdaddy.com/2017-exam-tips/

All the best,

Daniel

EconDaddy - IB Economics teacher and tutor
www.econdaddy.com

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