A-Level Economics Revision

My 7,000 hours of professional tutoring taught me one thing above all: you must measure what you don’t know to accelerate your learning. The research agrees. Psychologists call the sweet spot just beyond what you can currently do on your own the zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978) — it is where learning happens fastest, and the only way to find yours is to be tested. The classroom research says the same: Black and Wiliam’s landmark review of more than 250 studies found that formative assessment — finding out what a student doesn’t know, then teaching to exactly that — produces learning gains among the largest ever reported for an educational intervention (Black & Wiliam, 1998; Dylan Wiliam, Embedded Formative Assessment, 2011). Everything on this page works that way round — play first, get diagnosed, then study exactly what you got wrong. Why be a passive scroller when you could be an active learner solving questions? I always found — revising at Oxford, where I won three prizes in economics and the best mark in the year in Game Theory, and tutoring well over 145 A-Level economics students one-to-one — that figuring out what you don’t know first is absolutely critical to maximising the fun, enjoyment and productivity of your economics learning.

Three perfect 25-mark answers — worked through live

These three exemplar answers are, I believe, better than anything else available online — best in class. They are best in class because they have really thorough evaluation and really thorough question-to-topic mapping: exactly the skills that got me the best marks at Oxford University and my prizes in economics. Each one shows the whole method — how to work out what the question is really asking, which diagram to draw, how to build the chains of reasoning, and how to write the evaluation the mark scheme rewards. Read one before your next essay and steal the moves.

Evaluate the measures that could be used to control monopoly power — the micro flagship
Evaluate the policies a government could use to end a recession — the macro flagship
Evaluate the use of indirect taxation to correct market failure from pollution — the market-failure flagship

Test your diagram knowledge

The diagram is the model — and economists always look at the world through the lens of a model. Every chain of reasoning in every essay is built by reading one. That is why you want to check your diagram knowledge and make sure it is strong.

Every diagram, every corner lettered. Each one has a game that tests every point and area — every wrong answer gets a diagnosis — and a study page with the game’s questions answered on the diagram. Organised the way the course is taught: Year 12 and Year 13, microeconomics and macroeconomics.

Year 12 Microeconomics

Year 12 Macroeconomics

Year 13 Microeconomics

Year 13 Macroeconomics

Past paper questions by topic — mapped and explained

Real exam-style questions from every part of the course. For each one I show the first moves I teach in lessons: map the question to its topic, choose the right diagram, and focus on the relevant material and how to answer it — so you can practise the thinking, not just read answers.

Match questions to the right topic

Before you can answer an exam question you have to recognise what it is really asking — question-to-topic mapping is the first skill I teach.

The Macro A-Level game — AD/AS and the macro objectives, tested question by question. Played by hundreds of students.

Every question, answered

All 197 diagram questions on their own pages — each with the answer explained on the lettered diagram.

More ways to test yourself

Map A-Level Economics diagrams — the question-to-diagram diagnostic.

More revision tools are added here over time — check back.