Download AP Economics

COURSE NAME:
Economics – Advanced Placement
COURSE #: 470
Grades: 11-12
Level: Accelerated
Sem: 5X
Credits: 5.0
Course Description: This rigorous course is designed and taught at a level parallel to 4year undergraduate colleges and universities, employing a textbook endorsed by the
College Board. It incorporates interpretive skills, analytical thought, and complex
concepts in the study of economics. Economic literacy in microeconomics and
macroeconomics is the foundation for this course, as students understand and evaluate the
market economy. However, the course orientation, while applicable to a
multidisciplinary study, focuses on citizenship and social studies education. Within a
market economy, students learn advanced analysis in supply and demand to examine
various roles between consumers, producers, and governments. The national and global
economy become the context for macroeconomics, as students apply individual and
aggregate tools to measure economic welfare and evaluate the decisions made by
economic leaders and institutions.
Course Proficiencies: The following is a list of proficiencies that describe what students
are expected to know and be able to do as a result of successfully completing this course.
The proficiencies are the basis of the assessment of student achievement. The learner
will demonstrate the ability to:
1. Use the four language skills of reading, listening, speaking, and writing to acquire
a rich economics vocabulary needed to communicate ideas and interpretations in
class.
2. Compare and contrast different economic systems throughout history and across
the world by investigating what different economies produce, how they produce
goods and services, and for whom they are produced; evaluate the strengths and
weaknesses of each system, including traditional, market and command
economies.
3. Trace the development of economic ideology and how different ideas about
economic activity have manifested in policy decisions made by government
leaders from different eras to reflect the diverse needs and wants of people.
4. Understand basic economic concepts, such as resources, scarcity, incentives, and
choice, and apply these principles to human behavior and personal and societal
decision-making.
5. Analyze opportunity cost and its graphical representations of tradeoff to apply to
national and international contexts of economic decisions.
6. Understand, evaluate, and critique supply-demand principles, including its basic
properties and the relationships formed between prices and output in individual
and market economies.
7. Analyze how elasticity of supply and demand influence decisions by consumers
and producers.
8. Compare and contrast how firms in different market structures, including perfect
competition, monopolistic competition, oligopoly, and monopoly, theoretically
influences how different industries seek to make profit in a market economy.
9. Understand the properties and principles of the resource market – labor and
capital – and apply supply-demand analysis and profit making processes to
investigation of the input market.
10. Recognize that markets are imperfect due to asymmetrical information and
resources between consumers and producers, and evaluate how the government
and other institutions react to market failure to achieve a desired social outcome.
11. Define, analyze, and evaluate numerous economic indicators as quantitative
measurements of the health of the national and global economy.
12. Relate the principles of supply-demand analysis to aggregate terms, and apply the
macroeconomic nuances to evaluate societal output and price levels.
13. Trace the origins and purposes of money, banks, and other financial institutions
influential to economic activity in the national economy, and evaluate the forces
that play a role in how much money is in supply.
14. Analyze fiscal policy instruments, used for discretionary purposes to tighten or
expand the money supply, and evaluate the decisions made by the government to
achieve a certain economic outcome, as well as its impact on long-term concerns
related to consumer and government debt.
15. Understand and evaluate the unique role of the Federal Reserve Bank and its
relationship to monetary policy and banking regulations in the national economy.
16. Compare and contrast different theories related to macroeconomic policy-making
to evaluate the role between government and the economy in addition to the tools
available to influence outcomes nationally and internationally.
17. Analyze the principles, policies, and practices of international trade and evaluate
arguments for free and fair trade in a globalized economy.
Assessments:
1. Tests/quizzes correlated to the College Board
2. Projects and research papers
3. Daily participation and homework
Board Adopted Materials:
Text:
Economics (2005)
McConnell and Brue
16th edition, McGraw-Hill