Prelims work
Tutorial Sheets and Maths workbook
- Available here. You need to be logged in.
Deadlines and submissions
- Maths assignments: Tuesdays at 9am.
- Economics assignments: Fridays at 5pm.
- Please submit all assignments to your personal OneDrive file
- Please scan written work to a pdf file, not jpg photos of work (there are apps that can do this). A lot of helpful advice is given here.
- One pdf document for the whole assignment (separate economics and maths)
- Name documents as “firstname_lastname_Econ_WeekX” or “firstname_lastname_Maths_WeekX” where X refers to the week of the tutorial you are submitting the assignment for.
Pointers for assignments
- Always show working/steps for problems. Briefly state what the quantity you’re computing is, or give a brief intuition of what’s going on.
- 3 things I look for in a good essay:
- Make sure to focus on answering the specific question being asked
- Demonstrate an understanding of models – in other words, don’t just state results, but explain or show how we get to those results, and what assumptions are needed. Often the easiest way to do this is through graphs/equations. Don’t go overboard, though: it’ll be context-specific how thorough you can be here, and don’t give very detailed derivations. A rule of thumb is that you shouldn’t spend more than half your essay on the model.
- A clear and nuanced discussion that considers different perspectives on the question. It can be helpful to begin your essays with 1-2 lines clearly summarising your argument.
- There’s a good guid to writing essays in economics in section 3 of the exam guidance document on Canvas.
Week 1
Maths class 1
- Sheet 1
Q3-14. Please do Q13 (simultaneous equations) by the “elimination method”.
- Sheet 2
Questions 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9.
- Sheet 3
Quick questions 1, 3, 6, 7.
- Sheet 4 Q 1,2,3,5. Longer question 2
Week 2
Tutorial Sheet 1 (models, opportunity cost and trade)
- Problems 1, 2
- Question 4
Concise essay, up to 3 pages normal writing.
A few points on essay writing in economics:
- The core of the essay should be to explain an economic model. In this case, the model is the story of comparative advantage you’ll be learning about in lectures. You have to go through this, even though it is not creative, the point is to show you’ve understood the core of the bookwork.
- Having done that, try to critique the model. Thinking of ways in which free trade might be bad is good; linking them back to the model (if you can) is better. Obviously you can also take the counter line and say that free trade is in fact never bad: justify, preferably analytically.
Maths class 2: Sheet 5
- Q 1,2. Longer question 1.
- Also, draw the isoquants for the function min (2x+y, x+2y)
Week 3
Tutorial Sheet 2 (exchange)
- Problems 1,5,6(a),6(c),6(b) (that order),7,8
- (Maybe discuss some of the essay topics at the end of the Tutorial Sheet if there’s time)
Maths class 3: Sheet 6.
- Sheet 6: Quick questions 1,2,3,6,9.
- Tutorial sheet 2, problems 2,3,4. Plot the supply curve in 4.
Week 4
Tutorial Sheet 3 (producer theory)
- Problems: 1,2,3,5,6
- Question 1 (just a paragraph, not an essay)
Maths class 4: Sheet 7
- Quick questions 1,2,4,5,6.
- Longer question 1: use the log method we discussed last week!
- Workbook Sheet 6 longer question 2
Week 5
Tutorial Sheet 4 (consumer theory)
- Problems 1,2,3,4,5,7
- Question 2,3,4
Maths class 5
- Tutorial sheet 3 problem 4 with extra bit.
- Tutorial sheet 4 Questions 6,8,9(a,b). Don’t worry about 9(c)
- Maths workbook sheet 9 quick question 3
Week 6
Tutorial Sheet 5 (games and other-regarding preferences)
- Problems 1,2,3, 4, 5,7
- Essay 8: 1-2 paragraphs
Maths class 6
- A question I will pose on Cobb-Douglas
- Maths workbook sheet 7 longer questions 2 and 3
- workbook sheet 8 question 1
- Tutorial sheet 5 Problem 6
Week 7
Tutorial sheet 6 (Monopoly and Oligopoly)
Maths class 7
- Tutorial Sheet 6 Questions 2, 3
- Workbook sheet 8 questions 3, 5
Week 8
Tutorial sheet 7
- Problems 1,3
- Essay 7 (BBC)
Maths class 8
- Tutorial sheet 7 problem 2
- workbook sheet 9 longer questions 3
- Optional: Prelims 2023 Q2 NB: do not worry about the method of Lagrange multipliers. You will study that with Richard next year. Just approach these questions with methods 1 and 2.
- Go over everything outstanding, and I’ll re-cover anything that was too fast – please email me with specific requests
7