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Teacher guide

AQA GCSE Economics revision

These activities are mapped to AQA GCSE Economics 8136. Twenty-five of them, fifteen to twenty-four minutes each, covering all eleven topic areas: six microeconomics on Paper 1 and five macroeconomics on Paper 2. **The thing to know first is that there are no diagrams in them.** Economics is the GCSE that is taught with a pencil and a pair of axes, and across all twenty-five activities there is not one step where a student plots a curve, shifts it or reads equilibrium off it. The curves are explained in words and tested in words. What the set does do is the reasoning and the arithmetic. Twenty-five questions ask the student to type a value, and fifteen of those leave them to work out which calculation the situation calls for.

This page lists what we actually have for AQA GCSE Economics 8136. It is built from the live activities, so it is accurate on the day you read it.

The subject that is drawn, and a set with nothing drawn in it

Economics at GCSE is unusual among the social sciences in having a diagram at its centre. A pair of axes, two lines, and almost every idea on Paper 1 can be put on it: equilibrium, a shift in demand, a change in supply, the effect of a subsidy, the shape of an elastic curve against an inelastic one.

Across all twenty-five of these activities, there is not one step that asks a student to draw, label, shift or read a diagram. No plotted curve, no labelled axis, no value read off a graph. We checked rather than assumed, and the count is zero.

That is not a small caveat in this subject. A student who can explain in prose why demand falls when price rises, and who freezes when asked to show it, will lose marks in a way the prose fluency hides.

So use these for what they are: a thorough rehearsal of the reasoning and the vocabulary, which is the half of Economics that most revision leaves out because it is harder to write than a diagram worksheet. Then draw the diagrams in your room, where you can watch the pencil.

Where the reasoning is strongest

Three of the topics get genuinely substantial treatment.

The labour market and wage determination, at twenty-four minutes, takes demand and supply of labour through to wage differentials and the difference between gross and net pay, which is the part students most often get wrong in a real-world question.

Interest rates and decisions does the transmission properly: what a rate change does to saving, borrowing, spending and investment, and why the effect is not instant.

Government revenue and taxation covers direct and indirect taxes, progressive against regressive, and what a change does to incentives as well as to revenue.

Alongside them, productivity and economies of scale is the activity most worth setting before a Paper 1 mock, because the confusion between them is reliable and expensive.

Both papers, evenly

All six Paper 1 topics are covered: economic foundations, resource allocation, how prices are determined, production costs revenue and profit, competitive and concentrated markets, and market failure.

All five Paper 2 topics are covered: the national economy, government objectives, how the government manages the economy, international trade and the global economy, and the role of money and financial markets.

An even split matters more in Economics than in most subjects, because departments often mock Paper 1 in the spring and Paper 2 later, and a resource that is strong on micro and thin on macro is only half a revision plan.

The arithmetic, which is better here than on our Business pages

Economics has real calculation in it, and AQA examines it: elasticity, percentage change, index numbers, productivity per worker, profit, and gross against net pay.

Twenty-five of these activities ask the student to type a value rather than choose one, and only ten of those prompts name the operation. Most leave the student to decide that this is an elasticity question before working out the answer, which is the part that carries the marks.

For comparison, our AQA Business activities name the operation in forty-one of forty-five prompts. Same authoring pipeline, very different demand, and Economics came out the better of the two. If your students take both, AQA GCSE Business describes where that set stands.

Using them

The three activities embedded further down are playable here without an account.

The lists below group by classroom use, worked out from what each activity contains. For how each is meant to be run, see ready-to-run revision activities. To put several in front of one class in order, build a sprint and share one link. Everything else, by subject and board, is on the revision pages.

AQA's own papers in our past paper archive are free and unaltered, and their diagram questions are the ones this set cannot give you.

What this page does not do

No diagrams, at all. Stated at the top rather than the bottom because in this subject it is the first thing a teacher should know.

No data response practice. AQA's papers hang questions off an extract and a table, and these activities do not reproduce that format.

It is not a scheme of work. For a shape to drop these into, see how to structure a GCSE revision programme.

It does not track anything, so there is no completion list to check.

Every live Economics activity for AQA

25 activities, all mapped to AQA GCSE Economics (8136).

See all 25, by topic

Try it with your class

AQA Economics 16 minutes

Constructing and Shifting Demand and Supply Curves

14 steps, 10 interactive, 10 activity types.

Best used for
Homework Intervention Mock preparation
  • Homework: Set it as a link. It marks itself.
  • Intervention: Mostly questions, so it finds the gap quickly.
  • Mock preparation: Asks students to build an answer, not just recognise one.

Try one question

Which way does a demand curve slope?

AQA Economics 16 minutes

Price Elasticity of Demand and Supply

14 steps, 10 interactive, 10 activity types.

Best used for
Homework Intervention Mock preparation
  • Homework: Set it as a link. It marks itself.
  • Intervention: Mostly questions, so it finds the gap quickly.
  • Mock preparation: Asks students to build an answer, not just recognise one.

Try one question

What does elastic demand mean?

AQA Economics 24 minutes

The Labour Market, Wage Determination and Gross/Net Pay

15 steps, 10 interactive, 9 activity types.

Best used for
Intervention Mock preparation Cover lesson
  • Intervention: Mostly questions, so it finds the gap quickly.
  • Mock preparation: Asks students to build an answer, not just recognise one.
  • Cover lesson: Teaches and tests in one go, so a non-specialist can run it.

Try one question

Two jobs are both useful and both needed. One requires training that few people complete; the other can be done by almost anyone. Why does the first tend to pay more?

Common questions

Do these activities include diagrams?

No, and in Economics that is the gap worth knowing about. Across all twenty-five activities there is not one step where a student plots a curve, labels an axis or reads a value off a diagram. The curves are described in words and questioned in words.

Is the demand and supply content there at all?

Yes. Constructing and shifting curves, equilibrium price, the difference between a movement along a curve and a shift of it, and elasticity all have activities. The reasoning is covered thoroughly. The drawing is not covered at all.

How is the coverage split between the papers?

Evenly. All six of Paper 1's microeconomics topics and all five of Paper 2's macroeconomics topics have activities, which makes this a usable set for a mock on either paper alone.

Do students have to calculate?

Twenty-five typed-number questions, and only ten of them name the operation, so most leave the student to work out what to calculate. Elasticity, productivity, profit, gross and net pay and index numbers all appear.

Which are the strongest?

The four longest, at twenty-two to twenty-four minutes: the labour market and wage determination, interest rates and decisions, government revenue and taxation, and productivity and economies of scale.

Will I see who has completed them?

No. Following a shared link records nothing about who followed it, which is a deliberate choice about children's data.

Put one in front of a class

Tell us the subject and how long you have. You get a link to hand out, and it marks itself.

Create a free teacher account

Written by David Wright, Co-Founder, DoRevision.

David builds DoRevision with his son Noah (15). David has spent his career building EdTech products, and Noah has grown up watching lines of code being written. As a student at an important stage of his education, together they are building the revision platform that Noah is using to help revise for his GCSE exams and hopes his friends will find useful too.

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