In recent years, I do not know exactly when it happened, the price of a Freddo (bitesize chocolate a similar size to these revision bites...mmmm...) increased from it's original 10p to 17p!
The Chocolate Paradox is so: Supposedly "pic'n'mix" chocolate increasing to 170% of it's original price. Do I buy 10 bars and become 70p less rich? Do I switch brands? So my outrage has overcome my "brand loyalty" for my favourite chocolate?
The demise of Woolies seems to have led to chaos. Inflation is the average rise of prices of goods and services in an economy. It is one of four macroeconomic indicators used by the Bank of England to determine interest rates. The CPI or Consumer Price Index is the measure of inflation used by the UK government. The four macroeconomic indicators are crucial in the macro modules. Learn them well, and apply them to each and every essay question you get given.
The Macroeconomic Indicators ---> In red because they are THAT important!
1) CPI - inflation.
2) GDP - economic growth
3) Unemployment/employment levels
4) Trade balance
I also googled "price inflation Cadburys" to see whether there were any professional minds who could shed some light on the subject, and came up with this neat little article
http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/Kraft-warns-inflation-ftimes-2240818805.html?x=0
, which incorporates:
1) Takeovers, mergers and acquisitions. *Definitions to research: Vertical & Horizontal integration* Learn them!
2) Price inflation. "Average rise in the level of prices of goods and services."
3) Economies of scale - the benefits from being larger - Kraft and Cadbury profit margins rise by more than they would have done otherwise.
4) We could go on, I'm leaving this bit to you: Brainstorm away!
I guess all this leads us to http://www.facebook.com/pages/When-I-was-your-age-Freddos-were-only-10p/165603621246?v=info. and general public outrage. I present you the Chocolate Paradox.
Sunday, 27 February 2011
"hello economics world"
*Economics Bites in Bits and Bytes for A-Level Students*
Written entirely by an 18-year-old Economics Geek, who went through the Economics A-Level last year…
**This will be tailored towards the AQA syllabus as this is the syllabus I took my exam in, however I will try and make it as helpful as possible for any syllabus.**
Unfortunately, school external exams these days I find are tailored towards exam techniques, so I will provide you with some tips on exam technique I found useful myself when taking my Economics final exam modules!!
* Tutor2u conference. The powerpoint presentations which accompany this I found useful to flick through and memorise in short bursts, when my brain couldn't take any more of those solid revision textbooks that are commonplace in these kind of A Levels! Useful Tip No. 1:- Obtain some flashcards, possibly in the form of a powerpoint presentation. Write some yourself if you would enjoy doing so and would not lose the will to revise halfway.
* Don't waste time writing out things without taking them in. If you are going to make notes, make sure you are actually making notes, and not just copying huge hunks of text which you are not really understanding. Take short notes, from the main points. Highlighting everything in a block of text is also a waste of time. Highlight key words and practise drawing key diagrams for a variety of economic scenarios.
* Newspapers. "The Economist". Any economics-related magazines whereby you could absorb the odd article in that five minute space of time between turning on your computer and waiting for Facebook to load. Yes, I know, everyone has a short-attention-span when it comes down to revision! Make yourself interested, make yourself study and think of what you're going to achieve at the end of it and how you want to achieve it.
*Ignore advice about "length of time to revise". Create your own plan which you will stick to. If 15 minute short bursts of productivity work better for you than an hour of agonising over things you don't entirely understand and are slowly stagnating over, then do it in short sections! In that 15 minute length of time, you may find yourself inspired to carry on… It's all down to the fact that you don't actually have to carry on, and once you've reached something interesting, you have actually discovered motivation. If it's all boring as hell, then end the revision session at the 15 minute deadline. It's okay. You will definitely not find the entire syllabus interesting. You just have to have a go at what you can do.
* A horrible feeling is that of thinking you're never ever going to complete the syllabus in time. Ignore this feeling. Think about what you have achieved so far, ignore that ominous feeling of failure, everyone has been in that situation and felt useless, but they somehow still managed to pass their exams with flying colours. :) The ones who didn't just gave up at the first hurdle. Be disciplined and manage time effectively ~ an idea is to think of a particular time in your day where you're normally not doing a great deal. Optimise the space of time when you're sitting on a bus on the way to work, college or school by revising. Your motivation for this is that extra half hour with your favourite TV show, good book or your best mate later in the day.
* You really need to ignore any distractions in this 15 minute space of time. Turn off computer and phone. Play music if it helps or find a quiet room in the house or library or friends house. (Motivation to study = friend + boxset + cake after! Or whatever floats your boat.) Take batteries out of clocks that are distracting if you have to go to that extreme to concentrate properly.
* Actual revision material. This blog is going to aim to provide you with those "revision bites". I know that it is genuinely a LOT of material with any A Levels, but at the end of it all, it needs to be done if you want to get your grades!
* Being interested in one or two news stories a day would be a good plan for Economics in particular. Also Business Studies I can imagine, language A Levels (as you have to write essays…) and many others! Set the BBC news website to your homepage or that of your favourite newspaper. Watch a news related video and read one article every day when you first load up the internet. After that, you can IM your current love affair for as long as you want, guilt-free. (Just kidding - you have to read "The Economist" cover to cover. LOLjk.)
* Textbook questions at the end of a chapter. If you can motivate yourself, read a paragraph about a topic a day. If you go over things you learned last week, the topic is more likely to sink in for that extra 2 minutes of recap.
* Those times when you're feeling particularly happy, joyous, motivated, ready for revision, AWAKE, alert… Try reading a more challenging piece like something you'd find in a newspaper or "The Economist" (again…sorry…Its articles are of infinite use to an amateur economist! Promise! :)). With the aid of a newspaper article or two from time-to-time, you will begin to pick up the crucial economic buzzwords useful in essays like "price discrimination", "monetary policy", "inflation rates"… I know that if you are entirely new to the subject, like I was, all the definitions thrown at you can become quite daunting. Don't give up, you will learn them gradually and one day you can start talking economics speak to some poor randomer at a bus stop, and feel very clever and well-read. Or you can start to relate the price increase from 10p to 17p of a Cadbury Freddo (Shocking) to price inflation of luxury goods and a pretty, shiney diagram for income elasticity of demand.
Good luck!
Any questions, please leave comments and I might set up an e-mail address for questions as well.
Thank you for reading :).
Written entirely by an 18-year-old Economics Geek, who went through the Economics A-Level last year…
**This will be tailored towards the AQA syllabus as this is the syllabus I took my exam in, however I will try and make it as helpful as possible for any syllabus.**
Unfortunately, school external exams these days I find are tailored towards exam techniques, so I will provide you with some tips on exam technique I found useful myself when taking my Economics final exam modules!!
* Tutor2u conference. The powerpoint presentations which accompany this I found useful to flick through and memorise in short bursts, when my brain couldn't take any more of those solid revision textbooks that are commonplace in these kind of A Levels! Useful Tip No. 1:- Obtain some flashcards, possibly in the form of a powerpoint presentation. Write some yourself if you would enjoy doing so and would not lose the will to revise halfway.
* Don't waste time writing out things without taking them in. If you are going to make notes, make sure you are actually making notes, and not just copying huge hunks of text which you are not really understanding. Take short notes, from the main points. Highlighting everything in a block of text is also a waste of time. Highlight key words and practise drawing key diagrams for a variety of economic scenarios.
* Newspapers. "The Economist". Any economics-related magazines whereby you could absorb the odd article in that five minute space of time between turning on your computer and waiting for Facebook to load. Yes, I know, everyone has a short-attention-span when it comes down to revision! Make yourself interested, make yourself study and think of what you're going to achieve at the end of it and how you want to achieve it.
*Ignore advice about "length of time to revise". Create your own plan which you will stick to. If 15 minute short bursts of productivity work better for you than an hour of agonising over things you don't entirely understand and are slowly stagnating over, then do it in short sections! In that 15 minute length of time, you may find yourself inspired to carry on… It's all down to the fact that you don't actually have to carry on, and once you've reached something interesting, you have actually discovered motivation. If it's all boring as hell, then end the revision session at the 15 minute deadline. It's okay. You will definitely not find the entire syllabus interesting. You just have to have a go at what you can do.
* A horrible feeling is that of thinking you're never ever going to complete the syllabus in time. Ignore this feeling. Think about what you have achieved so far, ignore that ominous feeling of failure, everyone has been in that situation and felt useless, but they somehow still managed to pass their exams with flying colours. :) The ones who didn't just gave up at the first hurdle. Be disciplined and manage time effectively ~ an idea is to think of a particular time in your day where you're normally not doing a great deal. Optimise the space of time when you're sitting on a bus on the way to work, college or school by revising. Your motivation for this is that extra half hour with your favourite TV show, good book or your best mate later in the day.
* You really need to ignore any distractions in this 15 minute space of time. Turn off computer and phone. Play music if it helps or find a quiet room in the house or library or friends house. (Motivation to study = friend + boxset + cake after! Or whatever floats your boat.) Take batteries out of clocks that are distracting if you have to go to that extreme to concentrate properly.
* Actual revision material. This blog is going to aim to provide you with those "revision bites". I know that it is genuinely a LOT of material with any A Levels, but at the end of it all, it needs to be done if you want to get your grades!
* Being interested in one or two news stories a day would be a good plan for Economics in particular. Also Business Studies I can imagine, language A Levels (as you have to write essays…) and many others! Set the BBC news website to your homepage or that of your favourite newspaper. Watch a news related video and read one article every day when you first load up the internet. After that, you can IM your current love affair for as long as you want, guilt-free. (Just kidding - you have to read "The Economist" cover to cover. LOLjk.)
* Textbook questions at the end of a chapter. If you can motivate yourself, read a paragraph about a topic a day. If you go over things you learned last week, the topic is more likely to sink in for that extra 2 minutes of recap.
* Those times when you're feeling particularly happy, joyous, motivated, ready for revision, AWAKE, alert… Try reading a more challenging piece like something you'd find in a newspaper or "The Economist" (again…sorry…Its articles are of infinite use to an amateur economist! Promise! :)). With the aid of a newspaper article or two from time-to-time, you will begin to pick up the crucial economic buzzwords useful in essays like "price discrimination", "monetary policy", "inflation rates"… I know that if you are entirely new to the subject, like I was, all the definitions thrown at you can become quite daunting. Don't give up, you will learn them gradually and one day you can start talking economics speak to some poor randomer at a bus stop, and feel very clever and well-read. Or you can start to relate the price increase from 10p to 17p of a Cadbury Freddo (Shocking) to price inflation of luxury goods and a pretty, shiney diagram for income elasticity of demand.
Good luck!
Any questions, please leave comments and I might set up an e-mail address for questions as well.
Thank you for reading :).
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