There's no way around it: economics is a content-heavy cause which is considered to be one of the more difficult 2U subjects. Some of the past-HSC essays will ask students to cover a subject in one topic extensively, or ask students to draw on knowledge *across* topics for multiple subjects.
Lets look at the 2005 HSC.
Question 25 (20 marks)
Examine the reasons for changes in the composition and direction of Australia’s trade, and explain the impact of these changes on structural change in Australia.
At my current level of knowledge, writing an essay on Q25 would be nigh on impossible. I just havn't covered it in depth enough.
Question 26 (20 marks)
Examine the economic policies available to deal with inflation in the Australian economy, and explain the limitations of these policies.
Q26 is far more manageable. Here we would tackle fiscal/monetary policy and microeconomic reform's role in combatting inflation, using drawbacks and consequences as limitations to flesh out our examination. To bolster our answer, we might also refer to the Government's current inflation-targetting policy, and mention the current conflicting interests - inflation wise - of our mildly expansionary fiscal policy stance, and contractionary monetary policy.
Question 27 (20 marks)
Outline the factors affecting Australia’s economic growth, and analyse the relationship between economic growth and changes in Australia’s unemployment rate.
The first part of Q27 is fairly descriptive and simple, while the analysis of the relationship (although it is an inherently simple and logical inverse relationship, i.e. eco growth rises, unemployment falls) is somewhat harder. This is one of those essays you should be able to write with a fair level of confidence.
Question 28 (20 marks)
Outline the features of globalisation, and analyse the impact of globalisation on the standard of living in the global economy.
When I first saw Q28 I thought "Sweet deal. Case Study. China and Globalisation. Booyah." But no. Outlining the features of globalisation is descriptive and simple like the first part of Q27, and then the analysis kicks in. In general, globalisation has improved the standard of living in the global economy, and indeed it would be a good idea to refer to your case study here to support your argument. Be sure to strengthen your analysis by detailing exceptions to the above generalisation, whereby the process of globalisation has caused some poorer 3rd world countries to experience a decline in the standard of living. A mention of globalisation's impact on income distribution and its relation to living standards would also be beneficial. Q28 in my opinion is slightly more difficult than Q27, but both questions are, at least for their respective 'outline' sections, quite easy.
Q26, likewise, is quite straightforward. The only real bitchessay is Q25. I'd max out at 10/20 even if I had 60 minutes to write it.
man_p, I suggest you copy paste all the past HSC essay questions into a word document, and like I've done above, do a simple and quick overview of what it wants. Keep these overviews - augment them with what the marking guidelines and comments suggest for these extended response questions. They are not so daunting once you take the time to assess what it is they are asking for.
