Definitions and relationships are the easy wins
Terms like structural unemployment, the multiplier effect or crowding out have precise definitions that are worth memorising exactly, because vague paraphrasing costs marks in short-answer sections. Build direct recall cards for these.
For relationships between variables—what happens to aggregate demand when the cash rate rises—build a card that asks you to explain the mechanism, not just state the direction of change.
- Term → precise, exam-ready definition
- Model → what it shows and its key assumptions
- Policy → its intended effect and a limitation
- Relationship → mechanism, not just direction
Practise reading and drawing diagrams, not just naming them
A card that only asks you to name a model is weaker than one that asks you to sketch it from memory and label what a specific shift represents. Economics extended responses and data-response questions frequently reward students who can read or construct a diagram under pressure.
Practise the drawing itself periodically, checked against a reference diagram, rather than only recalling facts about diagrams.
Keep a separate, shorter-lived deck for current statistics
Unemployment rates, GDP growth and cash rate figures change and go stale. Keep these in a clearly labelled, smaller set that you refresh each term rather than mixing them permanently into your core deck—an old statistic recalled confidently in the exam can actually cost you marks.
Review this set more frequently but expect to replace individual cards as new data is released, rather than expecting them to survive spaced repetition unchanged for a year.
Link theory to real examples before the exam
Economics extended responses reward application, so once a term or model is secure, build a small number of cards that ask you to apply it to a real, recent example—a specific policy decision or economic event. This is closer to what the actual exam question will ask than a bare definition.
Revisit and update these example cards periodically so they do not fossilise around outdated events.