We have three economics teachers and we all think the Environment Option
(Option 2) in the recent AQA AS Unit 3 exam was awful. I would be
interested to hear any other views. The housing option was a kind
question helped by the healthy dollop of housing economics in Unit 1
Part 2 Q1. There was more environmental economics in Option C - Sports
& Leisure. Option 2 was about the oil market, which has a lot of
environmental implications, but not the way the questions were put. The
questions were more obviously about the workings of the oil market, and
the different views of long-term sustainability. The big mark last
question was poorly phrased. As worded the implicit critique of the
market solution is to do with the weakness of the market in ascribing
inter-temoral values, and this is not, as far as I know, in the A-level
syllabus. In short, we are very miffed, and think our mostly very
ordinary students will have struggled to link the material set to what
is normally recognisable as environmental economics. They will be
especially disappointed as most of them did some rather good 'course
work' in preparation.
What do other people think?
Richard Bowett
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