The best ways to do Economics Revision

Be it IB Economics or any other subject in the IB curriculum, success in exams strongly correlates only with revision and none other. IB Economics, as a subject, might appear challenging at times, and sometimes you might find it boring. Despite this, Economics is an extremely useful and significant subject that can be applied to various real-life situations. However, with the following tips on the Economics revision, you will learn that if revision is not done in a designed manner, you can certainly not do your best.

A thriving approach to revision needs to be ingrained in the subject knowledge, which must be persistent over time, so the subject teachers also need to unambiguously teach the strategy and replicate it before we expect the students to use it effectively.

 In simpler words, the students can ‘pick’ the most relevant concepts, ideas, terms, and facts in a given revision topic, before being asked to ‘choose’ what they consider the most significant concept/idea or knowledge they must understand before taking their examination. This will allow the students to be aggressively involved with their revision material while being meta-cognitive about the most important information they need to keep in mind.

In the meanwhile, these general pointers will stimulate your revision practices better – 

Revision Schedule 

Create a reasonably fair revision schedule while ensuring two things – neither are you jam-packed nor you have idling time. Here, try and apply the law of diminishing returns to your revision schedule because, after a certain point, every extra unit of input will yield lesser output. 

Split your time 

Instead of constantly revising for 8 hours without taking any break, it would be ideal to split the revision time of 8 hours into two sessions of 4 hours each where you can take a small break to de-stress.

Start Early 

Focus on starting early and finishing early so that you have the rest of the free time on hand rather than starting towards the later part of the day and having the pressure of completing the same till late evening.

Choose your Topic 

Start with a revision of your favourite topic and revise it first, eventually, when you reach the topics of lesser interest, it is unlikely that you will revise it as much in detail. Target your weakness and focus on the areas that are a little challenging and grasp lesser than others.

Past Question Papers 

During revision, use the past question papers that will give you a great idea of what to anticipate, and if you have past question papers from the last few years, you may be able to identify some frequent question topics. Tribe topper is a good resource for Economics questions and resources. 

Time Yourself 

Give yourself a similar amount of time you will have during the exam with the same type of question. This will give you a fair idea of what you are good at, what you can expect, and what you must focus on.  

Do try and solve as many questions as you can, as there is a probability of old or similar questions being used.

Diagrams 

The diagrams are very important in economics, and it is likely they will have to be more than just a sketch, so make sure they are big enough. You must also ensure that the graphs and diagrams create relevance within the answer.

Understand the Question

Structuring answers is also critical. Spend some time understanding the question. Figure out a plan of what to write about and stick to the same. Start with an introduction, followed by the main body, and finally conclude if the answers are supposed to be short essay type.

Teach your friends

You may not be the best person to judge your revision, still ranking your knowledge of topics that you have revised will set up the most relevant and meta-cognitive approach to evaluating your learning. This will help in regulating your revision while monitoring its constant progress.

The strategy of involving the students in teaching a topic/ concept from the revision to their peers can be interesting. This allows the students to structure their knowledge elaborately. And this practice can have beneficial effects.

One good old-styled self-assessment method is quizzing, one of the most tried and tested methods of robust revision where the students can regulate their memory and knowledge.

Find your Space

Choose to study in a nice and relaxing environment. Some students find it suitable to study in a library to stay focused: whereas some like to study in their homes or at their study desks. Ensure that you have sufficient light and study space privacy and that you are comfortable during revision hours.

IB Economics builds on knowledge derived from the concepts. In every year of your degree, you will study microeconomics and macroeconomics. And this also means, as is so often the case in economics, the topics will overlap. What you might have studied in one section will be equally applicable in another. Do try and apply this knowledge.

Lastly, it is also recommended to study from multiple sources. This can give you a better understanding of the topics, though other ways and means of learning can sometimes sound a bit tricky. You can find a link to some online resources here that can be of great use.