How to pass ICAN Economics
ATSWA Part I level. The syllabus has 12 areas and they are not worth the same — 35% of the marks sit in just three of them. Knowing which three changes what you do tonight.
Start here, in this order
- 1
Theory of production 15% of the paper
Concept and types of production · Short run and long run product and cost concepts, and the laws of returns · Economies and diseconomies of scale · Cost and revenue concepts and profit determination · Factors of production and their rewards · Division of labour · Location and localisation of industry · Forms of business organisation · Privatisation, commercialisation, nationalisation and deregulation · Mergers and acquisitions · Production function: total, average and marginal product · Economic rent, quasi rent and transfer earnings
- 2
The price system 10% of the paper
Demand and supply and their determinants · Equilibrium price and quantity, and consumer's and producer's surplus · Changes in demand and supply, and exceptions to the laws · Applications of demand and supply analysis: price control and minimum wage · Elasticity of demand and supply · Price elasticity of demand and the incidence of tax
- 3
International trade and finance 10% of the paper
Internal and international trade, and the reasons for trade · Theories of absolute and comparative cost advantage · Advantages and disadvantages of international trade · Terms of trade, balance of trade and balance of payments · Trade barriers and the case for and against protection · Foreign exchange: rates, markets and systems · Devaluation, revaluation, depreciation and appreciation · Globalisation: drivers, advantages and disadvantages
The remaining 9 areas share 65% between them. Worth knowing. Not worth the weeks that the three above deserve. Full weightings for this paper.
Then drill for speed
Economics is examined by objective questions answered on screen, so recall speed matters more than written argument. Drill until recognition is immediate, then work on the areas above where hesitation costs you time.
The part nobody does
Almost every candidate writes practice answers. Almost none of them ever find out whether those answers would have scored. You write, you feel it went reasonably, you move on — and the first real feedback you receive is the result, months later, when the diet is gone.
That gap is the whole reason preparation fails for people who worked hard. Not knowledge. Feedback.
What Edentos does about it
- The whole study text, in the order the marks are in.
- The official study text condensed and reorganised by examinable weighting, with every claim cited back to the page it came from — so you can check anything you doubt in one click.
- Find out now. Not when the results come out.
- Write by hand, photograph it, and have it marked against the examiner's own marking guide — with the marks broken down the way the examiner breaks them down, and the reason for each one.
- Revise where the marks are, not where the pages are.
- Every syllabus topic, ordered by the share of marks it carries, so your revision time follows the marks instead of the page count.
- A right answer with no workings is a wrong mark.
- The Institute's published solution beside your attempt, with the mark allocation visible — so you can see the marks sitting in the principle and the application, not only the final figure.