Frequently asked questions by J1 students (and parents) deciding on a subject combination
I’ve received a number of enquiries this week by both parents & students and observed that the questions that parents / students were asking were largely similar.
It might be beneficial to encapsulate my answers to these questions in a single post so that students and parents will be able to make a better decision!
Who am I?
I’m an Economics tutor (tuitiongenius.com), with 3 degrees - B.A. Economics (NUS), M.Sc. Applied Economics (SMU) and EMBA (Quantic). I’ve published a number of books - mostly in-house for our students through our own publishing company and some with a major publishing house in Singapore like Shing Lee.
I’ve been teaching A Level Economics since 2007 and I teach around 150 - 200 students annually + an extra 100+ students annually if we include crashcourses.
Should I take Economics as a subject?
Economics can help you make sense of of the real world
Economics is an interesting subject. Students typically start off learning Rational-Decision Making at the start of JC1 and the rational decision making framework can help you make better choices in life - in my case, it saved my life! You will also understand why prices of durians fluctuate on an almost day-to day basis when you start going through Demand & Supply. H2 students also learn about objectives of firms - and that is when certain things start making sense to you - like why Grab was giving away discount codes and cheap deliveries for both rides & food deliveries.
Government policies start to feel more sensible and you will start appreciating the concepts of trade-offs and figure out why the government banned PMDs on footpaths.
How difficult is Economics as an A Level subject, compared to other subjects
There is no such thing as an A Level subject that is outright ‘easy’ but there is one advantage of taking Economics at the A Levels. Few schools offer Economics at the O Levels and thus - almost everyone taking Economics start off with the same amount of understanding - ZERO.
Unlike other subjects like Math, Science or the Humanities - where a weak foundation can affect your learning - there’s no such handicap for Economics because your friends are also starting off fresh.
What are your alternatives to taking Economics?
You have to take 4 subjects and what I would recommend you to do is to start on eliminating the following
Subjects that you have no interest in and therefore ‘painful’ to study
Subjects that you have consistently not done well in
Should I take Economics at a H2 level or H1 level?
Why I will recommend most students to take Economics at a H2 level
H2 students do a Case Study paper (2h 15min) where they have to do 2 case studies of 30 marks each. H2 students also do an Essay Paper (2h 15min) where they have to choose 3 out of 6 Essay questions to do - 25 marks each.
H1 students do a single paper - there are 2 case studies of 45m each
I’ll recommend students to take Economics at a H2 level because
The content covered for H2 Economics is just around 25 - 30% more.
Students think that just simply because there is no essay paper for H1 Economics, they don’t need to learn essay writing skills - which is wrong. The H1 paper has 45 marks x 2 case studies. There are mini-essay questions to be answered and the skill set to attempt these questions are the same as what H2 students learn.
When ‘skipping’ certain concepts and topics for H1 students - Economics as a subject feels disjointed.
Students looking to do specific university courses should do it at a H1 level
If you are fixated on certain courses such as Medicine - whereby subjects such as Bio, Chemistry, Mathematics or Physics are part of what you intend to do at a H2 level, it’s sensible to consider Economics only at a H1 level. (Although I did have many students who took Economics at a H2 level and went on to do Medicine and have already graduated as doctors!)
Should I take four H2 subjects if given a choice?
If you have always been able to manage your time well - why not?
If you are considering to take scholarships - the 4th H2 subjects done well will be a distinguishing point
You can always drop one H2 subject to H1 level at the end of JC1 if you find that you cannot cope.
Go for it!
Is Economics a Science or an Arts subject?
Well, in my opinion, it’s a half and half. It’s considered to be a Humanities subject, and also a Social Science.
My experience with students are that - Science students tend to understand the Economics concepts better while the Arts students tend to translate these concepts into writing better.
There’s no distinctive upper-hand that Science or Arts students have from taking Economics as a subject.
If you’d like to have a chat about any of the above, feel free to talk to me on Whatsapp!
Here’s another post I’ve previously wrote about subject combination