OCR A-Level Economics Active Recall Guide (H460)
OCR · A-Level
OCR A-Level Economics Active Recall Guide
Every topic of specification H460 written as exam-style questions with the answers printed after them. 1,226 questions across 12 topics and 105 subtopics, covering microeconomics, macroeconomics and the synoptic third paper.
- OCR
- A-Level
- Specification H460
- 1,226 questions
Guide overview All 12 topics Sample questions Papers and weighting Look inside Questions and answers
What the exam asks of you
OCR A-Level Economics is assessed by three equally weighted papers of two hours and 80 marks each. Component 01 is microeconomics, Component 02 macroeconomics, and Component 03 is fully synoptic and draws on both.
Every student sits all three. There are no optional topics to drop, which means the whole specification is examinable and the only variable is how much of it can be produced under time.
| Paper | Covers | Length | Marks | Weighting |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Component 01 Microeconomics |
The economic problem, the allocation of resources and opportunity cost Markets: demand, supply, elasticity, market failure and government intervention Business objectives, costs and revenue, market structures and the labour market Data response questions, then two extended responses, each chosen from a pair: one pair requires a quantitative answer and the other does not |
2 hours | 80 marks | 33.33% |
|
Component 02 Macroeconomics |
Aggregate demand and aggregate supply, and the circular flow of income The policy objectives of growth, employment, price stability and the balance of payments Fiscal, monetary and supply side policy, the global context and the financial sector The same format as component 01, focused on macroeconomics |
2 hours | 80 marks | 33.33% |
|
Component 03 Themes in economics |
Fully synoptic: draws on both the microeconomic and the macroeconomic content No content is prescribed for this paper beyond components 01 and 02 30 multiple choice questions, then 50 marks of questions applying economics to an unseen theme and reaching a judgement |
2 hours | 80 marks | 33.33% |
What is in the guide
All 12 topics
Every topic has its own page with its subtopics, what it covers and sample questions.
Sample questions
Taken from the guide. Answer each one closed book first, then open the answer.
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Economic and free goods, scarcity and positive and normative statements
State the economic problem in a single sentence.
Show the answer
Human wants are unlimited but the resources available to satisfy them are finite, so choices about how resources are used must be made. -
Specialisation, the division of labour and barter
Why does the division of labour reduce average costs?
Show the answer
Higher output per worker spreads fixed costs over more units and makes specialised machinery worth installing. -
Profit maximisation and alternative business objectives
A firm abandons profit maximisation for revenue maximisation. What happens to its price and output?
Show the answer
Output rises and price falls, because the firm keeps expanding past the point where marginal cost equals marginal revenue until marginal revenue reaches zero. -
Perfect competition in the short and long run and allocative efficiency
For a price taker, how are price, average revenue and marginal revenue related?
Show the answer
They are all equal, so the single horizontal line is at once the demand, average revenue and marginal revenue curve. -
Derived demand for labour and wage elasticity of demand
Why does a rise in labour productivity raise the demand for labour at a given wage?
Show the answer
Each worker now adds more output and so more revenue, which raises marginal revenue product and makes it profitable to employ more workers at the same wage. -
The circular flow of income, injections and leakages
In the simple two-sector circular flow, what do firms provide and what do they receive?
Show the answer
Firms provide goods and services to households and receive consumer expenditure in return. -
Economic growth, real and nominal GDP and GDP per capita
Why can nominal GDP rise in a year when real GDP falls?
Show the answer
Because prices can rise fast enough that the higher money value of output conceals a fall in the physical quantity actually produced. -
The government budget, types of tax and the budget balance
What happens to the average rate of tax as income rises under a progressive tax, and under a proportional tax?
Show the answer
Under a progressive tax it rises, so higher earners hand over a larger proportion of their income, whereas under a proportional tax it stays the same at every income level.
How the guide is worked
Answering a question from memory stores it far better than reading the answer again. The guide runs that as a fixed procedure on one subtopic at a time, about twenty minutes a session.
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Step 1 · Closed book
Cover the answers. Work through one subtopic and write down what you can. Leave blanks where you have nothing.
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Step 2 · Open book
Go back to the top. Read each printed answer and write it out in full, including the ones you had right.
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Step 3 · Closed book again
Same questions, same order, from memory. The gap between pass one and pass three is the session result.
Read the full method, the return schedule and the research behind it.
Look inside
Questions for a subtopic print together and the answers for that section print after them.
- Introduction to Microeconomics70
- Microeconomics: the Role of Markets257
- Microeconomics: Business Objectives72
- Microeconomics: Market Structures113
- Microeconomics: the Labour Market75
- Macroeconomics: Aggregate Demand and Aggregate Supply111
- Macroeconomics: Economic Policy Objectives202
- Macroeconomics: Implementing Policy97
- Macroeconomics: the Global Context102
- Macroeconomics: the Financial Sector75
- Quantitative Skills for Economics26
- Themes in Economics: Synoptic Application26
- Define specialisation.
- What is the division of labour?
- What three advantages does the division of labour bring a firm?
- Why does the division of labour reduce average costs?
- State three drawbacks of the division of labour for workers.
- Why does specialisation make an economy more vulnerable to shocks?
- What is structural unemployment, and how is it linked to specialisation?
- What is a barter system?
- What is meant by the double coincidence of wants?
- The concentration of a worker, firm, region or country on producing a narrow range of goods, services or tasks.
- Breaking a production process down into separate tasks, each carried out by a different worker.
- Workers become faster through repetition, no time is lost switching between tasks, and each worker can be matched to the job they do best.
- Higher output per worker spreads fixed costs over more units and makes specialised machinery worth installing.
- Repetitive tasks become boring, skills become so narrow that workers are hard to redeploy, and falling motivation can reduce quality.
- Specialists depend on trade for everything they do not produce, so a break in the supply chain or a collapse in demand for the specialism causes widespread disruption.
- It is unemployment caused by a mismatch between workers' skills and the jobs available, and heavily specialised workers cannot easily move when their industry declines.
- Exchange in which goods and services are traded directly for other goods and services without the use of money.
- For barter to work each party must have exactly what the other wants and want what the other has, at the same moment.
questions
Scroll sideways to turn through the pages.
Questions students ask first
Does it cover all three papers?
Yes. Five topics for Component 01, five for Component 02, plus quantitative skills and synoptic application which are examined across all three. The full topic list is here.
Component 03 is synoptic. What is actually on it?
Themes in Economics draws on both micro and macro together, in a context you have not seen. There is no separate body of content to learn for it, which is exactly why it exposes gaps: you cannot connect two things you cannot each recall.
Are the diagrams covered?
The guide asks what each diagram shows, what shifts each curve and in which direction, what the areas represent and what the diagram proves. Drawing them accurately under time is what past papers are for.
I get the essays wrong even when I know the content.
Those are two different problems and they need solving in order. The guide fixes recall of definitions, mechanisms and evaluation points. Essay structure, the choice between two extended responses and time allocation come from past papers marked against the mark scheme.
OCR A-Level Economics Active Recall Guide
Every question paired with its answer, grouped by topic and subtopic, ready to work in three passes.