Economics

JSK 252

Im presently going into 5th year and I have always thought of taking up economics as an extra subject because from what I have heard it is a short course and with work, you will be deservedly rewarded. Can anybody who has done the subject give me any advice? Is it possible to do the course in 6th year in one of the grinds schools say on a saturday? Does anybody know of any grind schools ( eg Bruce College) in Cork City region that do it as an extra subject?

Im currently doing Irish, English, Maths, French, Chemistry, Biology, Geography and LCVP and hope to persue something in the scientific field.

Unfortunately my school doesnt have the subject because it already has Business and Accounting. I have always had a firm interest in that area of commerce having studied little bits of economics from JC business studies in which I got an A in HL.

Any comments will be appreciated.

p.s I hate Physics

adam_ccfc

Enemy Of Fate

JSK 252 wrote:

Unfortunately my school doesnt have the subject because it already has Business and Accounting.

Jesus how **** is your school?I mean my school was terrible and in the middle of nowhere....but even it did the 3 businesses!!!Anyways economics was definitey my favourite LC subject, both due to how enjoyable it was (my first choice is mainly economics based) and how easy it is.

Anyways you could cover the ENTIRE economics course in about 2 months of solid study, by which I mean maybe 2 hours a day.HOWEVER......its just not feasible with a textbook, at least not the one I had, which I firmly believe is the worst textbook ever.Also the Less Stress More Success book for it is decent.....but its quite out of date, and not entirely clear on some details (still infinitely better than the text book though).Unless you can manage to find a textbook that doesn't suck, then you will need some grinds with someone to explain some of the important stuff that the book skips over (which in my case was pretty much everything bar the FOPs).

However it seriously is the easiest subject in the leaving, due mainly to its predicitibility (out of the past 15 years they've asked a full 75 mark long question about elasticity 13 times.....funniy enough this was the first year in ages that they didn't!!Which probably ****ed alot of people who thought it was a sure thing, but thankfully i'm not one of those people) and the sheer choice you have on the paper (9 short questions do 6 {probably 3 or 4 of the questions will have been asked in previous papers} and 8 long questions doe 4)....so I'd definitely do it!Realy interesting too, especially if you're business minded like me (and obviously you as well).

Edit:Oh and just for reference i'm hoping for an A2/B1 tomorrow in the results.It should be an A1, but they didn't ask a long question on elasticity (although I didn't actually realise that until I heard it on the radio that evening!!) or international trade.Still though, i'll get an A2/B1 no prob, and if i'm lucky I may still get my A1.I mean my answers were all great....but my 4th question wasn't as perfect as it could have been....Hmm.

JSK 252

adam_ccfc wrote:

And your point being...

JSK 252

Enemy Of Fate wrote:

Jesus how **** is your school?I mean my school was terrible and in the middle of nowhere....but even it did the 3 businesses!!!Anyways economics was definitey my favourite LC subject, both due to how enjoyable it was (my first choice is mainly economics based) and how easy it is.

Anyways you could cover the ENTIRE economics course in about 2 months of solid study, by which I mean maybe 2 hours a day.HOWEVER......its just not feasible with a textbook, at least not the one I had, which I firmly believe is the worst textbook ever.Also the Less Stress More Success book for it is decent.....but its quite out of date, and not entirely clear on some details (still infinitely better than the text book though).Unless you can manage to find a textbook that doesn't suck, then you will need some grinds with someone to explain some of the important stuff that the book skips over (which in my case was pretty much everything bar the FOPs).

However it seriously is the easiest subject in the leaving, due mainly to its predicitibility (out of the past 15 years they've asked a full 75 mark long question about elasticity 13 times.....funniy enough this was the first year in ages that they didn't!!Which probably ****ed alot of people who thought it was a sure thing, but thankfully i'm not one of those people) and the sheer choice you have on the paper (9 short questions do 6 {probably 3 or 4 of the questions will have been asked in previous papers} and 8 long questions doe 4)....so I'd definitely do it!Realy interesting too, especially if you're business minded like me (and obviously you as well).

Edit:Oh and just for reference i'm hoping for an A2/B1 tomorrow in the results.It should be an A1, but they didn't ask a long question on elasticity (although I didn't actually realise that until I heard it on the radio that evening!!) or international trade.Still though, i'll get an A2/B1 no prob, and if i'm lucky I may still get my A1.I mean my answers were all great....but my 4th question wasn't as perfect as it could have been....Hmm.

Thanks a lot for taking the time to give me some info on the subject. So you are saying it is a short course and you can do it in a year ? Obviously you have to study it. No denying that.

Yah its a bit of a bollox that we dont have economics considering in my school we have a strong business department as one of our teachers wrote the less stress more sucess book for Junior Cert Business studies. I dont want to do business as its a long course and I opted for geography instead of accounting.

Good luck with your results tommorrow and hopefully you will get that A1 in Economics.

Enemy Of Fate

JSK 252 wrote:

So you are saying it is a short course and you can do it in a year ? Obviously you have to study it. No denying that.

Absolutely.I mean we had the ENTIRE course covered twice before Christmas of LC year...and then we spent the rest of the year revising the important stuff.Anyways while I may be an exception rather than the rule (since Economics is the only subject I truly enjoyed and excelled at, it was also the only subject I truly worked at throughtout the year), I actually only started PROPER study for Economics 5 days before the exam (had German on the Friday and Economics on the next Wednesday)....however unless you're GREAT at the subject thats not advisable (due to an unforseen circumstance I was an hour late for my economics mock and only got 75% of the paper done.....I still get 69%!!!So i'm not exactly the typical economics student!).

JSK 252 wrote:

I dont want to do business as its a long course and I opted for geography instead of accounting.

I did business as well as economics, and although I loved business for the JC, I found the LC course INCREDIBLY boring and monotonous.It focused on FAR too many unimportant details, and doesn't go into any reasonable amount of detail in anything (cept for perhaps stupid EU directives).So in summary Economics>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Business.

JSK 252 wrote:

Good luck with your results tommorrow and hopefully you will get that A1 in Economics.

Thanks for the support!

adam_ccfc

JSK 252 wrote:

And your point being...

use it, cocksniff

JSK 252

adam_ccfc wrote:

use it, cocksniff

I dont need to use the search toolbar thank you very much, but thanks for reminding me it was there.:rolleyes:

JackKelly

adam banned.no need for that

Enemy Of Fate

Yay I got my A2 in Economics as predicted.Go me!!...should have been an A1 though....

*Scowls at examiniers*

JSK 252

Enemy Of Fate wrote:

Yay I got my A2 in Economics as predicted.Go me!!...should have been an A1 though....

*Scowls at examiniers*

Fair play, fair play. Well done well done.

You could always appeal your economics result you know?:D

Your an excellent advertisement in showing how easy the subject is.:D

How did you get on in telling your business teacher to go **** themselves?

myth800

Hey,

I’m going to be undertaking the leaving cert next year and I’m doing economics for higher level as well . But I’m not so sure how many hours should I put in studying a night of economics . Should I buy Less Stress More Success book in economics and do u have any study guidelines thx

JSK 252

Anyone else do the subject and have the time to give their thoughts on it? Im ringing up the grind schools in the Cork area tommorrow about doing it as an extra subject.

Enemy Of Fate

myth800 wrote:

But I’m not so sure how many hours should I put in studying a night of economics . Should I buy Less Stress More Success book in economics and do u have any study guidelines thx

Ok well like I said already the LSMS book is by no means perfect (why the hell does it have to abbreviate every single word?!?!?), but it is INFINITELY better than the textbook I used.It also has a fanatasic short question section at the back, which is great for when you want to test yourself for a few minutes of your time (like a big nerd!).

Anyways as for study.....to be honest I never seriously studied for economics....or any other subject for that matter (up until the month before the leaving of course)!For me, the homework my teacher set me once a week was always grand (maybe 1 or 2 long questions from the exam papers), however something I can't stress enough is that DEFINITIONS.ARE.VITAL.VITAL!!!!So just learn them as they come rather than in one big lump, and you'll be perfectly fine.

Also another VITAL piece of equipment you will need is previous exam papers.Worth their weight in gold (not very heavy I know, but still!) these are invaluable.Because the economics exam is about repetion, repetion, repetion.Get perfect answers to all of the short answer questions in EVERY previous exam, and then learn them all off by heart.I gaurantee at least 2 or 3 will show up on your exam papers.Repetion, repetion, repetion.

Anyways you should all listen to my advice!!Because according to the irish indepedent's statistics, I am one of the top 398 economic students in the country....although I should be in the top 97.....Maybe I should appeal my result....I mean I don't need the extra points...at all.But it'd be nice to have an A1....

*Scowls at examinier*

JSK 252 wrote:

How did you get on in telling your business teacher to go **** themselves?

She wasn't there!!None of the teachers showed up till 11 or so, and I was there at like 8:30....and had left by like 10:00....so I missed her.The *****!!!

How to ace economics:

Do ever paper there has been, pay close attention to the marking schemes availible at www.examinations.ie

Answer every short question in ever past paper, there hasn't been very many "new ones", they just regurgitate the old ones really.

Take down chapter headings from your economics book, then discard, use these chapter headings to get together every question answer that has been asked on the subject.

Use the marking scheme to make your own notes.

Sorted.


I did economics in one year, and got an A1.
It's simply a case of the past papers showing you exactly all you need to know

lucernarian

I was pretty dissapointed with the subject. I worked hardest at economics for the last 6 months I had, especially after my mock results were below expectations. I dropped from a B1 in the mocks to a B2 in the LC, even though I felt I had done better in the LC.

And I followed nearly suggestion that Emmet posted. Printed out every marking scheme available aswell, just to get accurate answers. I barely looked at the marking schemes for other subjects in comparison.

A completely unrewarding subject:mad:

aof

Very easy subject. Did it in one year got an A1 without much work. The main thing is know the marking schemes and past papers. I'd also recommend focusing on the micro half of the course it's really straight forward and the same stuff comes up every year. If you write what's in the marking scheme they have to give you the marks. Macro can be a bit more ambiguous but if you know what's going on in the world you can bull**** your way through a lot of the questions.
The only thing is in general you have to be very precise I think that's why so many people do so crap in such a joke of a subject. If I remeber correctly only like 4% of people get A1s.

myth800

thx for the help !!

Rozabeez

I did it, found it extremely boring, missed a load of the classes, spent any classes I did go to chatting to the person beside me, passed about 3 tests in 2 years, never did homework....and I got a C3. There ya go, do it if you're lazy like me.

JSK 252

Had a brief look through the papers just for curiosity. Are all those diagrams with the curves etc. easy to remember?

GretchenWieners

Yeah they are. Go to Sean O'Brien in Bruce College, he has a lot to do with setting the paper. I didn't go to him and got a C3, down from a B3. Cost me my course-I'm 5points short

Enemy Of Fate

JSK 252 wrote:

Had a brief look through the papers just for curiosity. Are all those diagrams with the curves etc. easy to remember?

Ah yeah once you've had them explained/figured them out, they're easy.And thats not THAT many of them anyways.Maybe 15-20 tops, and although that sounds alot.....its still nothing compared to the sheer amount and difficulty of the science diagrams and stuff.Also loads of them are very similar....so they're not bad at all!

GretchenWieners wrote:

Yeah they are. Go to Sean O'Brien in Bruce College, he has a lot to do with setting the paper. I didn't go to him and got a C3, down from a B3. Cost me my course-I'm 5points short

Umm....they may not be directly related you know?

GretchenWieners

Yeah I know they're not directly related. He's brilliant from what I heard though. I wish I heard his tips before the exam though. ****ing elasticity wouldn't come up again like

JSK 252

How many are in Sean O Briens classes in general does anybody know?

MasterSun

Economics is a good subject to choose in LC.
it is short, but most of my classsmates found it boring, so most of them ended up doing ord level and got a crappy result.
couldn't blame them much, the book we used havn't got one single coloured pic, everything is in black and white.