Writing a Band 6 HSC Economics essay can be difficult because the essay questions can vary from addressing a specific section of the syllabus to having a broad focus and therefore requiring synthesis of entire topics.
Furthermore, there are two HSC Economics essays in the HSC exam, which make up 40 marks of the whole exam!
Section III– is a stimulus based economic essay response where youMUST引用所提供的刺激并将其集成到您的响应中。
Section IV– a free response economic essay.
This article aims to therefore streamline the writing process and provide a sustained, logical and cohesive approach that is backed by findings from experienced HSC Economics markers:the ones who mark hundreds of essays year in year out.
Ready to learn how to ace your HSC Economics Essay? Let’s jump in!
Here is the example question we’re going to use throughout this article to demonstrate what to do to get that Band 6 in your HSC Economics Essay (Question 27 of the 2016 HSC).
Editor’s Note:Although this post was made in 2018, any sample responses will be written as if they were written in 2016, reflecting the current state of the economy at the time.
Step 1: Plan your Response
Why Plan?
使用书写手册的第一页来勾勒出您的回应计划。
In fact, this was often what I woulddo first在经济学考试开始。我想开发一个plan for my essays and then go back to the Multiple Choice section.
This achieved two things:
- It warmed up my mind so that I was ready to engage with Section I and Section II
- More importantly, this ensured I would not forget my essay plans throughout the exam and I could readily return to my plan to jog my thought process.
这很关键，因为经济学论文强调了思想的逻辑发展。
Therefore, in many ways, an essay plan allows you to visualise your thought process and reduce the chance of you forgetting your train of thought or worse, going on a tangent and including irrelevant details.
This helps keep your responsesustained, which is a key component of the A range marking criteria.Your essay must continually drive towards developing your thesis – the actual answer to the essay question itself.
In saying so, before we plan, we mustunderstand the NESA directive verbs.This will determine the level of depth and the approach the markers are looking for.
If you’re unsure about your directive verbs, check out NESA’s glossary of key directive verbs这里！
How to Plan for an HSC Economics Essay:
The most important thing about any essay is the answer to the question itself with your thesis.所有要点，论点和统计信息都仅用于支持它。
As a result, begin the plan by writing a direct answer to the question. In your thesis you want to:
- Provide context for the question – include definitions of key terms such as monetary policy or economic objectives.
- Then use qualifiers or intensifiers (to some extent, significantly, is ineffective) to answer the essay question.
For our example, the thesis would look like:
Expansionary monetary policy conducted by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) involves deliberate actions to theoretically increase the supply of funds and reduce the cash rate, the cost of borrowing, in an effort to achieve economic objectives. However in practice, the RBA’s aggressively expansionary monetary policy, exemplified by its low 1.50% cash rate, has only had a limited impact on the economy.
接下来，将您的想法组织成点点，您可以在上面写段落。
Also note down any sub points or arguments you think of underneath. This can include theory, links to the stimulus if this is a Section III essay, relevant statistics or graphs.
由于这是计划阶段，因此即使只有一个单词或关键术语来保留您的思想列车也是不可能的。
Below is an IDEAL plan using our example question. I have used more words than I normally would to help you read along (in reality, one word dot points are fine, as long as you can understand what you’ve written).
If there are natural links and connections between paragraphs this can also be useful in transitioning in between different paragraphs to maintain the凝聚力of the essay, i.e. making it flow better.
步骤2：完成介绍很强
Now you have already written a strong thesis and have provided context for the essay.
All that is left is to connect your paragraph points to answering the thesis. This is in lieu of simply stating which objectives you will be looking at, which is not as effective and thesis-driven. Compare the pair:
而不是说：
Economic growth, inflation, unemployment and external stability are economic objectives which monetary policy have failed to address.
Try this:
The transmission mechanism’s failure to boost consumption and business investment has lead to poor economic growth, and combined with below target inflation, unemployment that exceeds the NAIRU (non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment), and an increasing current account deficit (CAD) driven by a widening trade deficit, monetary policy has failed to achieve a positive impact on the Australian economy and its objectives.
如果您能够在观点和所解决的论文之间显示直接链接，则对标记的印象深刻得多，因为它显示了一种逻辑方法。
步骤3：写作过程
The other general criteria in HSC Economics essays is the related to您写和使用语言的方式, includingeconomic terms, concepts, relationships and theories.
This of course means you must know your content well and be able to connect different parts of the syllabus together and understand their relationships.
Once you have mastered your content, the criteria then asks for a ‘sustained, logical and cohesive’ response. In order to achieve this, it is best to use aclear structure(which we have planned for in Step 1) as it forces you to retain a logical and cohesive structure.
Here’s how to do it:
使用DPEEL（写作结构）
To provide a basic structure, followDPEEL这将确保您在论文中始终如一地使用经济术语，概念，关系和理论。
Definition- 假设标记是外行（对课程的知识有限），并确保您定义经济术语或概念以反映您的理解。可以集成到响应中，不需要自己的句子。
观点- 攻击问题，并指出您的整体答案，类似于迷你论文。
解释- 提供有关您观点的详细信息。根据您被问到哪种指令动词，您也可以在这里开始展示关系（分析），提供其他经济理论来证明因果关系（解释）或做出判断（评估）。
Evidence– Integrate elements from the stimulus if it is a Section III Economics essay. Further, it reflects more in depth synthesis if you refer to specific statistics or quotes from the stimulus rather than simply stating a vague, ‘as seen in Source 1.’ If it is a Section IV Economics essay, this is where relevant statistics, graphs or economic theory will further elaborate and support your argument. However make sure you also explain graphs and their effects, rather than simply referring to them as ‘Figure 1,’ as failure to do so severely limits their effectiveness.
Link– Conclude your paragraph by linking your points back to your original thesis.
Use transition signals
The ‘sustained’ element of the marking criteria means the markers want the essay toflow uninterrupted。没有其他细节或侧面。
The best way to achieve this is through the use of transition signals.
过渡信号include words such as furthermore, hence, as a result, this leads to, but, however. These are ‘linking’ words which along with the DPEEL structureFORCEyou to stay on track and sustain your attack on the thesis, as each sentence must relate to the previous. Hence this makes it extremely difficult for you to stray off topic, allowing you to create a sustained response!
准备关键统计和经济发展的表
就像英语一样，经济学也是对记忆需求高的主题。您不仅必须记住课程内容，还必须记住相关的统计信息和图形。一种简单的表使您可以组织信息。例如：
This will increase your mind’s ability to chunk the information without feeling overwhelmed.
Write a Strong Conclusion
HSC经济学论文结论非常简单。
They need to:
重申您的立场和观点restating your thesis– your answer to the question.
把你的分and summarise how those ideas have supported your thesis.
Provide a final statement that ‘zooms out‘ and provides a broad perspective of the question. This could be through providing an insight into future trends, expectations or areas for discussion.
Make sure you don’t overdo the conclusion.三到四句远远足够and the last thing a marker wants to see is a conclusion that has overstayed its welcome!
步骤4:实践HSC经济学Essay Plans
最后也是最重要的提示是practisethis approach using different styles and topics of essay questions. It is also important that youplan the essays as you would in an examto give you practice for planning for unseen questions.
We’ve done the hard work for you and you can find acollection of HSC Economics Essay Questions here!
Apply these steps to build your consistency in writing logically and systematically.
That is the only way you will improve and better appreciate the amazingly pragmatic text type that is the HSC Economics essay. If you need more essay questions you can use past HSC exams, your textbook, or ask your teacher.
Are you looking for some extra help with your HSC Economics Essay writing?
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Terry Huangcompleted his Bachelor of Secondary Education with a Bachelor of Commerce at the University of New South Wales. A strong believer that lessons should be engaging, relevant, and effective, his hustle and teaching approach have led to his recognition on the UNSW Faculty of Social Sciences Dean’s List for Academic Excellence, the NSW Teachers Federation Future Teacher scholarship, and the New Colombo Plan program. Terry enjoys listening to Kanye West, learning about cryptocurrency and memorising scenes fromThe Office。
