Trying to memorise all of your HSC Economics content can seem like a nightmare. Where do you even start?
Lucky for you, your long-term memory is essentially unlimited. The storage capacity of the human brain is virtually limitless!
So memory is pretty important and useful, especially when it comes to learning your HSC Economics notes!
Now, let’s get stuck into it! I’ll take you through step-by-step of the best way to memorise all of your HSC Economics content.
Step 1: Identify your learning style
Step 2: Find out what you actually need to know
Step 3: Find out what you need to know just before the exam
Step 1: Identify your learning style
Before your start to learn your HSC Economics content, you need to identify your learning style.
Identifying your learning style allows you to use a study method that is best suited to your way of learning!
The main three styles include audio:
- Audio/Auditory: People who learn best from hearing and speaking.
- Visual: People who learn best by seeing and reading.
- Kinaesthetic/Tactile: People who learn best by touching and doing.
Don’t know what your learning style is? Find out here!
Visual Learning Techniques:
If you’re a visual learner you learn best by reading, seeing or picturing information in your head.
Try using the following:
- Timelines
- Mindmaps
- Venn Diagrams
- Read Flashcards
- Colour Code your notes
- Write down key words or ideas
Audio/Auditory Learning Techniques:
If you’re an auditory learner you learn best through listening and through hearing.
You remember best when listening to things that you have heard already!
If you think you could be an auditory learner, try using some of the following to memorise your HSC Economics content:
- Podcasts
- Record yourself and play it back
- Use flashcards; read them out load
- Talk to your cat/dog
- Read notes aloud
- Study new material by reading it out loud
Kinaesthetic/Tactile Learning Techniques:
If you’re a tactile/kinaesthetic learner, you learn best by doing. You learn best when physical activity is involved.
In economics, there is plenty of opportunity to learn through graphing and organising your notes into flashcard groups.
Try some of the following techniques too:
- Rewriting notes – doing things with your hands
- Creating tables
- Making lists – Writing out facts in a list has been proven to be extremely effective.
- Making flashcards and arranging them in groups to show relationships between economic ideas.
Step 2: Find out what you actually need to know
HSC Economics is a difficult subject in the sense that there is a lot of material to cover.
When you’re approaching your exams, you need to work out what will be in your exam.
I’m going to assume you are reading this before you start preparing for your trial examinations, however it’s the same process when preparing for your actual HSC exams.
If you’re preparing for your trial exams, the first step is to read over the exam notification and work out what topics will be tested.
Also, make sure you’ve grabbed a copy of the HSC Economics Syllabus here (if you haven’t already).
For your actual HSC, every year 12 sub-topic has a chance of being examined, but sometimes questions can also draw from knowledge you acquired during the preliminary HSC in year 11.
The next step is to take out your fabulous study notes.
What study notes?
Your HSC Economics notes should be comprehensive and cover the entire syllabus.
I’ve prepared a study note template which you can use to create your study notes that you can download below!
In the template, the syllabus is broken down into sections with key headings and subtopics to make sure you’re prepared for any question thrown at you!
Step 3: Find out what you need to know just before the exam
This is what you need to memorise closer to your exam.
1. Statistics
I tell all of my students that they need to be familiar with a couple of key statistics before any economics exam:
Monetary Policy: The current interest rate set by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) – Currently 1.5% (as of April, 2019).
This interest rate is great knowledge to have and useful in many essays about the Australian economy or monetary policy!
The Inflation Rate: Knowing the rate is useful to include in essays about changes to the consumer price index. Both of these statistics can be found on the front page of the Reserve Bank of Australia website here.
Look at the inflation rate for the past few quarters. Is it increasing or decreasing? If the trend is increasing it could be a sign that the economy is booming and it may indicate tighter monetary policy (higher interest rates) in the future.
2. Definitions
Definitions are the lifeblood of a good understanding of economics. It’s important to remember some definitions of key terms. For example:
Demand: the quantity of a good or service wanted by consumers at a particular price at a particular point in time.
Aggregate Demand: Total expenditure in an economy on goods and services, including expenditure on investment in capital goods and stocks, plus exports of goods and services minus imports of goods and services.
Balance of Payments: A record of the financial transactions of one country with all other countries and international institutions over a stated period.
Externalities: Externalities occur when all the costs and benefits of an activity are in its price, because people or firms external to the market transaction are affected. Externalities occur when the actions of one economic agent effects the utility or profits of another economic agent in ways that are not taken into account in the market.
Economics has some complicated aspects but with a little bit of time, but with this step-by-step guide, you should be able to memorise your HSC Economics content in no time!
Looking for some extra help with your HSC Economics?
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Thomas Woolley loves Economics and Business Studies. He completed his HSC in 2013 and has been working at Art of Smart since 2014. He enjoys helping out his students whilst studying B Commerce / B Education at UNSW to become an actual economics/business studies teacher in 2018. Since high school Thomas has also learned to scuba dive, salsa dance, and he can fly a quadcopter like a pro. However, he still cannot skateboard.
