What does it take to make a 7 in HL Economics?
Most IB students pick HL Economics thinking it is an easy seven that can boost their total score. However, IB economics is one of the most instense courses offered by the IBO. There are five main steps to take in order to gaurentee a seven in HL Economics.
First, every seven seeker should dedicate at least two hours of their daily time to reading economic articles and watching the news. Many students think that fresh examples are not necessary on paper 1 questions; but their crucial for a 7 seeker. Think about an examiner reading thousands of paper 1 answer sheets each about 8-10 pages long every single year. Can you think about how many times he read a student's paper 1 that uses Microsoft as an example of a monopoly, Japan as an example of inflation, or the OPEC as an example of a cartel? Obviously millions of times! He is bored having seen those numerous times in every solution. Giving an examiner a mood can be extremely detrimental to your grade. Save yourself from an examiner's bad mood and try using topics covered in the recent news to keep your answer interesting from the start. After reading for two hours, the student must of two potential paper one question on the topic he has read about and write two timed responses to that question with a one page long evaluation. This must be done on a daily basis from day one.
Second, the student must start practicing paper 2 exam question from year one. Most teachers descide to take the tradional route of teaching microeconomics, then macroeconomics, then international economics, and finally devlopment. By doing so, they end up teaching students micro and macro on the first year and the rest is taught in second year. Some of them get caught up in teaching micro and therefore forced to teach all of macroeconomics, international trade, and devlopment on the second year. Remember second year involved writing all IA's for all subjects and your extended essay. Since paper 2 is only on international trade and development the traditional way gives students a very short time to practice paper 2 questions. No matter how much they try they can never improve their scores on paper 2 to make their total grade a 7. Thus it is highly recomended that student start studying international trade and development during their winter and spring breaks of the first year. Furthermore as soon as they cover one of the units they should start practicing two timed paper 2 questions every single day just like they do with paper one.
Third, a seven seeker must score full credit on both of his paper 3 questions. To be honest, paper 3 marks are gift from the IBO that should be well treated by all IB HL economics students. In order to score full credit, students must practice practice time paper 3 questions so that they solve each question in 15 minutes leaving them with 30 minutes to redo the entire paper 3 all over again checking each and every question for a perfect answer. Perfect answer are usually achieved by a through understanding of the question and its command term. Understanding the command terms tells the student exactly what the examiner is look for in his solution. A list and an explanation is usually given in your study guide however I will be generally going over the expectations of each comand termed in detail when solving problems with my students.
Fourth, a seven seeker must stick to one source from day one of the IB program and never change it under any circumstances. The IB does not have and official book which leaves students with numerous books to chose from I have a good experience with significance of sticking to one book because I changed the source was using in the last weeks before final exam. This had detrimental reprecussions on my preformance. I will be recomending the best book out of all books I have used during my IB experience.
Finally, a student must master perfectly drawing any of the diagrams he studied in no more than a single minute. Diagrams usually take up most of the time on paper 1, paper 2, and even paper 3 exams because they take time to be remembered by students. Many conditions have to be met and very specfic details must be shown. Any 7 student must be able draw any diagram blindfolded. The way to practice that is by reading aritcle about different topics studied and giving yourself exactly one minute to draw the diagram that matches the situation described.
By precisely following those five steps any IB HL Economics student should make a 7.
