5 Steps to a 5 AP Microeconomics, 2014-2015 Edition

(Marvins-Underground-K-12) #1
the market for automobiles. Show a downward-sloping demand curve shifting to
the left and you can see that option (B) is correct. The graph speaks for itself.


  1. Come back Lassie, come back!There are 60 questions and none of these is worth more
    than the other. If you are struggling with a particular question, circle it in your exam
    book and move on. Another question deeper into the exam might jog a memory of a
    theory you studied or something you learned from a practice exam in this book. You
    can then go back and quickly slay the beast. But if you spend a ridiculous amount of
    time on one question, you will feel your confidence and your time slipping away.
    Which leads me to my last tip.

  2. Timing is everything, kid. You have about 70 seconds of time for each of the 60 ques-
    tions. Keep an eye on your watch as you pass the halfway point. If you are running out
    of time and you have a few questions left, skim them for the easy (and quick) ones so
    that the rest of your scarce time can be devoted to those that need a little extra reading
    or thought.


Other things to keep in mind:


  • Take the extra half of a second required to clearly fill in the bubbles.

  • Don’t smudge anything with sloppy erasures. If your eraser is smudgy, ask the proc-
    tor for another.

  • Absolutely, positively check that you are bubbling the same line on the answer sheet
    as the question you are answering. I suggest that every time you turn the page you
    double-check that you are still lined up correctly.


Section II: Free-Response Questions


Your score on the FRQs amounts to one-third of your grade and as a longtime reader of
essays, I assure you there is no other way to score highly than to know your stuff. While
you can guess on a multiple-choice question and have a one-in-five chance of getting the
correct answer, there is no room for guessing in this section. There are, however, some tips
that you can use to enhance your FRQ scores.


  1. Easy to read =easy to grade. Organize your responses around the separate parts of the
    question and clearly label each part of your response. In other words, do not hide your
    answer; make it easy to find and easy to read. It helps you, and it helps the reader to
    see where you’re going. Trust me, helping the reader can never hurt. Which leads me to
    a related tip: Write in English, not Sanskrit. Even the most levelheaded and unbiased
    reader has trouble keeping his or her patience while struggling to read sloppy handwrit-
    ing. I have seen three readers waste almost 10 minutes using the Rosetta stone to deci-
    pher a paragraph of text that was obviously written by a time-traveling student from
    the Byzantine Empire.

  2. Consistently wrong can be good. The free-response questions are written in several parts,
    each building upon the first. If you are looking at an eight-part question, it can be scary.
    However, these questions are graded so that you can salvage several points even if you
    do not correctly answer the first part. The key thing for you to know is that you must
    be consistent, even if it is consistently wrong. For example, you might be asked to draw
    a graph showing a monopolist who has chosen the profit-maximizing level of output.
    Following sections might ask you to label the price, economic profit, consumer surplus,
    and deadweight loss—each being determined by the choice of output. So let’s say you


36 › Step 3. Develop Strategies for Success


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