IB Economics Tuition
Higher and Standard Level, one-to-one and online. £80 per hour.
IB Economics asks for something the English boards do not: that you write about the subject through a set of named concepts, that you bring your own real-world evidence to almost every answer, and that you produce a piece of coursework that is worth a serious fraction of the grade. Students who treat it like an A-Level with different paper numbers tend to underperform.
What makes IB Economics its own subject
The nine key concepts are assessed, not decorative
Scarcity, choice, efficiency, equity, economic well-being, sustainability, change, interdependence and intervention run through the whole course. Most students can recite them and very few use them properly in an answer. An essay that frames an intervention question around equity against efficiency reads completely differently from one that lists advantages and disadvantages, and the mark reflects that.
Real-world examples are compulsory
On the English boards a good example lifts an answer. On IB, the absence of one caps it. This is the single most common reason a technically sound IB script scores in the middle, and it is entirely preventable with a small bank of examples that the student actually understands rather than a list copied from a revision site.
Diagrams carry explicit marks
IB is more prescriptive than the English boards about drawing, labelling and then referring to a diagram in the prose. It is a reliable source of marks and a reliable source of lost ones, because a correctly drawn but unmentioned diagram does almost nothing.
The papers, and what each one is really testing
The course is built from four units: an introduction to economics, microeconomics, macroeconomics, and the global economy. Higher Level adds extension material and a third paper.
Paper 1
Extended response, an hour and a quarter, both levels. Two-part questions where the first half explains and the second half evaluates.
The part that separates grades is the second half. Students write a strong explanation, then evaluate in three vague sentences and lose most of the marks available.
Paper 2
Data response, an hour and three quarters, both levels. An unseen text and set of figures, then a run of questions ending in an extended evaluation.
Timing is the usual failure. Students spend too long on the early definitions and arrive at the final question, which is worth the most, with ten minutes left.
Paper 3 (HL only)
The policy paper, an hour and three quarters. Heavily quantitative, and the place where the HL extension material is actually tested.
This is the paper HL students most often neglect, because it feels like maths rather than economics. It is also the most mechanical, so it responds very well to practice.
The Internal Assessment
Three commentaries, each capped at 800 words, each built on a published news article, each drawn from a different unit of the course and using a different key concept. It is worth around a fifth of the Higher Level grade and closer to a third at Standard Level, which makes it the highest-value work in the subject per hour spent.
It is also the part students handle worst, and almost always for the same two reasons. They choose an article that is too broad, so the commentary describes a situation instead of analysing one. And they spend three hundred of their eight hundred words summarising the article, leaving no room for the diagram, the analysis and the evaluation that the marks are actually for.
Article choice is most of the battle, and it takes about twenty minutes to get right with someone who has read a lot of them. I will work through drafts with you, tell you which parts of a commentary are earning marks and which are filler, and be straight about where a piece sits against the criteria.
To be clear about where the line is: the commentary has to be your own work, and your school will ask you to confirm that. I teach the technique, comment on drafts and point at what is missing. I do not write any part of it, and you should be wary of anyone who offers to.
Thinking about dropping from HL to SL?
This comes up most often in the winter of the second year, and it is worth thinking about properly rather than in a panic. The honest position: if the difficulty is Paper 3 and the quantitative work, that is the most teachable part of the whole course and dropping is usually the wrong answer. If the difficulty is that Economics is the sixth subject in a Diploma that is already overloaded, the maths is not really the problem and a different conversation is needed.
Happy to talk it through on a consultation even if you do not end up booking lessons. Check any change with your IB coordinator first, since deadlines for level changes are set by the school.
Frequently asked questions
We are not in the UK. Does the time difference work?
Often, yes. Everything is online and there are early and late slots. Tell me your time zone when you get in touch and I will say straight away whether I can cover it properly, rather than agreeing to a slot that will not hold up across a whole year.
Can you help with the Extended Essay in Economics?
Yes, within the same limits as the IA. Research question, structure, whether the data you have can actually answer the question you have set. Your school supervisor remains your supervisor, and the writing stays yours.
I am taking IB but my teacher is following a different order to the syllabus.
That is normal and not a problem. Lessons follow your class, not a fixed schedule of mine, so we work on what you are doing now and fill gaps as they appear.
Start with a conversation
Bring your level, your IA deadline and your last piece of marked work. Thirty minutes, no charge.