Economics Examining under Scrutiny

Economics is a fast-growing subject at sixth form level - the number of students taking external exams has grown by more than 50% in the last six years. We study and learn a fantastic subject, one that is constantly changing and which will always ask interesting questions about the world around us.

At tutor2u we have been blessed to get to know hundreds, perhaps thousands of people who share a passion for independent study. Teachers spend countless hours preparing their lessons and their students for important exams - exams that have a direct bearing on university ambitions and life & career choices. Teachers and students deserve an exam system that is credible, accurate, fair, up to speed with the subject and most of all, one that we can trust. That trust is in pretty short supply in schools and colleges up and down the country. Indeed it poses a real threat to the future of a subject that we love.

Several schools have been in touch with us in recent days to express their concerns, worries and outright anger at some of the economics marking this summer by the major awarding bodies. A number of remarks have shown huge changes in scores although the exam boards seem reluctant to allow mark alterations on individual papers to end up with a change of grade.

These criticisms have come from vastly experienced teachers, deeply knowledgeable about economics and with long track records of helping their students to get the grades they need and deserve.

We are committed to supporting our teacher community both here in the UK and overseas. In this blog we have provided some examples of what we consider to be poor examining and which deserve a proper response from the exam boards. We are happy to put online other examples from colleagues all of which will be completely non-attributable to a school / student. We will however name the exam board in each case.

Do you have your own concerns? Would you like them to be shared through the tutor2u blog and teacher community?

What experiences have you had this year? Do you feel that there is a crisis of confidence and trust in economics examining?

Have you examined recently but have chosen not to continue?

Are you happy that the demand for remarks is bringing more revenue into the exam boards?

Why are exam boards so loathe to change overall grades during a remark?

Samples of Marking from June 2012

Please note - these are not perfect exam answers! They are what was written by the candidate - warts and all! At the bottom is the mark that was awarded for a particular question

OCR Question: Comment on whether a cut in corporation tax will increase investment (6 marks)

Answer: “By reducing the tax taken from a firm’s profits, businesses will have more money to spend on investment in capital goods. However, it depends on how large the cut is; a small cut will only give firms a small amount more to spend on capital and so it is not worthwhile doing so. Also, it depends on confidence in the future - if businesses think that the economic climate is unstable, they may prefer to keep the extra amount rather than invest it”

No marks awarded

OCR Question: State 3 costs of inflation (3 marks)

No marks were awarded for any of the following answers from students:

* decrease in consumer confidence
* erodes real purchasing power
* firms may have to make redundancies since other costs of production e.g. raw materials go up

OCR Question: Explain why many fast-food items can be classed as demerit goods? (4 marks)

Answer: fast foods are very unhealthy for us and make us fat due to the high amount of carbs. Consumers are not fully informed when buying the food how bad it is for them (the private cost). This means that the private cost is greater than consumers realise because they are not receiving all the information on how bad the food is for us. Therefore fast foods are demerit goods.

No marks awarded

OCR Question: Explain the change in consumer surplus as a result of a fall in the price of burgers (4 marks)

One student drew the perfect diagram in every way except for not putting a label on the demand curve and wrote a fantastic accompanying paragraph making full reference to the areas on the diagram that he/she was referring to, and scored zero because the mark scheme stated:

”if the demand curve, price or quantity is not labelled give zero for whole answer”

Please send us other examples of what you consider to be poor and unfair marking in the summer 2012 exams, we will publish a selection and bring together non-attributable comments.