21 topics
Economics help, with the graph drawn as it's explained
Economics exams are graded on diagrams, and the most common failure is not misunderstanding the theory — it is shifting the wrong curve. A change in the price of the good itself moves along the demand curve; a change in anything else shifts it. Students who blur that distinction lose marks on questions they conceptually understand.
Where students get stuck
Shift the curve or move along it?
Price of the good itself: move along. Anything else — income, the price of a substitute, expectations, the number of buyers: shift the whole curve. The reason is that the curve is drawn with price on the axis, so price changes are already represented by positions on it. Anything not on an axis has to be represented by moving the line.
Elasticity — I can calculate it but not use it
The useful consequence is what happens to total revenue. If demand is elastic, a price rise loses more quantity than it gains in price, so revenue falls. If inelastic, revenue rises. That single relationship answers most exam questions about pricing decisions and tax incidence, and it is why taxes get put on inelastic goods.
Deadweight loss — where is the triangle?
It sits between the new quantity and the efficient quantity, bounded by the demand and supply curves. The way to find it reliably is to mark the quantity actually traded and the quantity that would be traded in a free market, and the triangle is the region between them. The trades represented in that triangle were worth more to buyers than they cost sellers, and they did not happen — that is what the loss is.
Fiscal and monetary policy blur together
Fiscal is the government spending and taxing. Monetary is the central bank changing interest rates and the money supply. Different actors, different tools, different lags. The most-tested distinction is that monetary policy acts faster but works through interest rates and therefore hits investment and housing first, while fiscal policy is slower to legislate but more direct in its effect.
What's covered
Economics topics you can work through with a tutor, generate practice on, or turn into flashcards and a study plan.
Microeconomics
- Scarcity, opportunity cost, and the production possibilities curve
- Supply, demand, and market equilibrium
- Price elasticity of demand and supply
- Consumer and producer surplus
- Price ceilings, floors, taxes, and subsidies
- Costs of production and returns to scale
- Perfect competition, monopoly, oligopoly, and monopolistic competition
- Externalities and public goods
Macroeconomics
- GDP and how it is measured
- Inflation, CPI, and real versus nominal values
- Unemployment and its types
- Aggregate demand and aggregate supply
- The business cycle
- Fiscal policy and the multiplier
- Monetary policy, central banks, and interest rates
- The Phillips curve
International and applied
- Comparative advantage and gains from trade
- Tariffs, quotas, and trade barriers
- Exchange rates and the balance of payments
- Economic growth and development
- Behavioural economics and game theory basics
Economics questions
Does it draw the diagrams?
Yes — supply and demand shifts, cost curves, AD/AS, the Phillips curve — sketched on the whiteboard as it explains, with the shift shown as a movement rather than as a finished picture you have to interpret backwards.
Does it cover AP Micro and Macro, or IB Economics?
Both. The topics above span AP Microeconomics, AP Macroeconomics and IB Economics; tell it which you are taking and it will use the terminology and diagram conventions your exam expects.
Can it help with data response and essay questions?
Yes. Those are graded on structure and on whether you evaluated rather than just described, so it works the same way as the essay feedback does — against the criteria you will actually be marked on.
Stuck on economics right now?
Talk it through out loud, share your screen, and watch it worked out step by step on a whiteboard.
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