How To Answer IGCSE Economics Paper 2

In Cambridge IGCSE Economics (0455) Paper 2, students are required to write answers to structured questions. Answers need to be written well to obtain the necessary marks. Many students with poor command of English struggle to do well in Paper 2. However, with proper writing techniques and practice, these students can still score high marks (at least Grade B) even if their command of English is poor.

Here are some techniques which have helped many of my students with poor command of English:

Technique 1 : Read and analyse the question carefully.

· Pay attention to key command words and underline them. Command words such as Explain, Identify, State will indicate how much to write.

· Pay attention to the economics terms and concepts used in the question and circle them. They will indicate the content areas on which you are required to focus.

· Look at the marks awarded for each question to estimate how many main points and how much to write.

Technique 2 : Sketch out the cause and effect relationships.

Most questions that require explanation and analysis will ask the “how” question. For example, a question may ask, “Explain how interest rates can be used to regulate economic growth”. Here the effect is economic growth. The cause is interest rates. So, you need to sketch (on a rough piece of paper) the relationships between the interest rates and other economic variables which eventually will impact economic growth.

Using the question above, your sketch might look like:

IR ---Borrowing--- Consumer Spending----GDP--- Economic growth

The sketch above contains key economic terms which will be awarded marks. It is important to crystallized these key economic terms in the answer and by sketching out first, the chances of missing them out in the actual answer will be minimised.

Technique 3 : Connect the dots with simple English

Once you have sketched out the relationships, connect these relationships with simple English. For example, using the sketch above, the sample answer will be:

Movement in interest rates will affect level of borrowings. Lower interest rates will increase consumer borrowings because the cost of borrowing will be cheaper and vice versa. Higher borrowings will allow consumer to spend more and when consumer spending is higher, this will increase GDP and hence, economic growth.

You will notice that all I did was to connect the economic variables with simple words such as “will increase” or “higher” or “will affect” and so on.

Technique 4 : Write your own notes and practice answering questions

· No matter what techniques there are out there, there is no shortcut to success except through a lot of practice and hard work. I recommend that students write their own notes during class and when they do their revisions.

· Practise answering past year papers

If you like to share your own techniques, please feel free to comment below.