The 3-step active recall method

Re-reading notes is a futile process when your aim is to remember the information and successfully apply it in exam settings. Active recall is the method you use to ensure the information sticks for a long period of time. But even active recall can be futile unless you have a structured way of implementing it. This is where the 3-step active recall method comes in, a structured method that is signature to the Levo Learning guides.

1. Step 1

   Answer up to 10 questions cold, closed book, even if you are unsure on the topic.

2. Step 2

   Answer the same questions again, but open book. Write the correct answer down even if it seems pointless.

3. Step 3

   Repeat as step 1 and answer the questions closed book again.

Worked across the CCEA A-Level Economics specification, one subtopic at a time.

The subject, and what is assessed

CCEA A-Level Economics is assessed by four units, two at AS and two at A2. AS 1 covers markets and market failure and AS 2 covers managing the national economy, each lasting 1 hour 30 minutes and worth 20% of the A-Level. A2 1 covers business economics and A2 2 covers the global economy, each lasting 2 hours and worth 30%. The AS units underpin the A2 units, so first year material stays in use through the second year.

Memorisation, then application

Marks are given for applying content to the question that has been set, which cannot happen while the content is still being looked up. Step 1 shows what is actually held. Step 2 puts the correct wording in front of you while the gap is still fresh. Step 3 repeats the cold test, and the difference between the first and third attempt is the part that has moved.

Every question in the guide is paired with its answer in the same document, so step 2 is done from the guide itself rather than from a separate set of notes.

What is inside the guide

Questions are grouped by topic and then by subtopic, following the CCEA specification. Open a topic to see its subtopics.

Sample questions

Taken from the CCEA A-Level Economics guide. Answer each one closed book first, then open the answer.

1. Key Economic Concepts

   Why do economists count a fish stock, a coal seam and a river as the same factor of production?

   Show the answer

   All three are gifts of nature rather than things people have manufactured, so all three are classified as land. The factor land is not limited to the ground itself: it covers every natural resource used in production, including minerals, forests, fisheries, water and the climate.

2. The Basic Economic Problem of Scarcity and Choice

   What are the three fundamental questions every economy must answer?

   Show the answer

   Every economy must decide what to produce, meaning which goods and services and in what quantities; how to produce, meaning which combination of factors and which techniques to use; and for whom to produce, meaning how the output is distributed among the population. Different economic systems answer these questions in different ways, but no system can avoid them.

3. Demand and Supply in Product Markets

   What is a substitute good, and how does a change in its price affect demand for the original good?

   Show the answer

   A substitute is a good that satisfies a similar want and can be bought instead, such as tea and coffee. If the price of coffee rises, some consumers switch to tea, so the demand curve for tea shifts to the right at every price of tea. A fall in the price of coffee shifts the demand for tea to the left. Substitutes therefore move together in the sense that a price rise in one raises demand for the other.

4. Markets and Equilibrium

   Why is the equilibrium price sometimes called the market-clearing price?

   Show the answer

   At that price the market is cleared in the sense that everything offered for sale is bought and everyone willing to pay that price obtains the good. There is no leftover stock and no queue of frustrated buyers. Any other price leaves one side of the market unsatisfied, so only the equilibrium price clears it.

5. Factor Markets: Labour

   Two firms both face a 10% wage rise. In one, wages are 70% of total costs; in the other, 10%. Whose demand for labour is more elastic?

   Show the answer

   The firm where wages are 70% of costs. There a 10% wage rise raises total costs by about 7%, forcing a large price rise, a big loss of sales and heavy job cuts. In the other firm the same wage rise raises total costs by only about 1%, which can be absorbed with little change to price, output or employment. The greater labour's share of total cost, the more elastic the demand for labour.

6. Market Failures and Imperfections

   Why is market failure not the same thing as a market having collapsed?

   Show the answer

   Market failure means the price mechanism misallocates resources, not that trade has stopped. In most cases the market works perfectly well as a mechanism and simply produces the wrong quantity: too much of a good carrying external costs, too little of one carrying external benefits. Only in the extreme case of a missing market, such as a pure public good, does the market genuinely fail to appear at all.

7. The Circular Flow of Income

   In the circular flow of income, what do households supply to firms, and what do they receive in return?

   Show the answer

   Households own the factors of production, so they supply land, labour, capital and enterprise to firms through the factor market. In return firms pay them factor incomes: rent for land, wages and salaries for labour, interest for capital and profit for enterprise. The sum of those payments over a year is national income.

8. Measuring National Income

   Why should the income, expenditure and output measures of national income give the same figure?

   Show the answer

   They measure the same circular flow at three different points. The value of what is produced is paid out in full as factor incomes, so output equals income; those incomes are then used to buy the output, so income equals expenditure. Because it is one flow counted three times, the three totals are identical by construction rather than by coincidence.

Questions about this guide

Other CCEA A-Level guides

All CCEA A-Level guides · All A-Level guides