After a long afternoon nap, I think my mind has suddenly become very clear. I will not disclose what happened this morning, but it was an event of such unhappiness that I spent my waking hours from 6pm to 7pm drowning my sorrows in concentrated sulphuric acid. It wasn't at 150°C and it didn't need a reflux. And my body didn't get substituted by anything.
I was just numb. And feeling like something's split me into two. In the solitude of my own house, I felt very much like a lone pair. There was this feeling of repulsion between myself.. an inexplicable feeling probably unknown to most, especially Arts students. They master the emotions and human behaviour, but they do not understand the chemistry within it.
Okay forget it. To be entirely honest, neither do I. Me, I know nothing about Chemistry.. except failing it. But that we can leave aside - because there are more important issues to cover.
The economics paper, for one, is more subjective and more discussable. So let's discuss the subject.
But first, what has happened to proper English? It seems as if even the teachers of RJC do make fundamental mistakes in giving instructions to candidates. It's not our fault if we misinterpret.. but not like there's a lot to misinterpret. Just something really redundant.
Right - then you get a few extracts and a few charts, all of which look suspiciously on the same topic. Cars. And carparks. And petrol prices. Then you start to wonder why everything's got to do with the price of petrol. Even if you're talking airline industries, you talk petrochemicals. Cars, definitely petrol. Butter and guns, also petrol because sometimes when butter melts it's a bit like the liquid petrol and rich men who get filthy rich through petrol carry guns.
Basically, the world and economics is all about petrol. Ugh how boring.
Wait till you see the questions. I don't know about other JCs, but in RJC we do get some really funny questions. Here they are:
(a)(i) What is meant by "in real terms the ex-tax price of petrol has reduced"? [2]
It means that in terms that are not fake, the price of petrol excluding tax has dropped. DUH it was obvious enough from the question I don't know why am I even answering such a stupid question. Free frag.
(a)(ii) Describe the trends shown in Chart 1. [2]
Well I must say Chart 1 looks like your typical stock market indices in the Money section of the Straits Times - lots of ups and downs, looks pretty complicated, but it really doesn't mean a thing. Trends are a passing thing, anyway - so why bother observing them?
(b) Using an appropriate diagram explain what is meant by "Since the 1980s the primary increase in the price of petrol has arisen from increases in government taxes?" [4]
Price
^
/ /
/ /
/ /
/__ /_____________________> Year
Here are two lines - the one on the left is the price of petrol, the one on the right is the taxes. As you can see, when price of petrol goes up, so does the taxes. This proves they go up together. Kind of like a suicide bomber and his bomb. As time goes by maybe nothing happens, but suddenly BOOM they go up together! Okayyyy.
(c)(i) Explain what is meant by price elasticity of demand? [1]
No, I won't explain. Since you ended the question with a question mark, it means I can choose to explain it or not. Well I refuse to and so there!
(c)(ii) What explanation can you offer for the reported size of the petrol price elasticity of demand for car travel? [3]
Well for one, it's obvious that the price of petrol is related to car travel. I don't know what's reported, but cars need petrol to travel. And as I am only a silly Economics student, I am not about to speculate on petrol price elasticities. Leave that to the big oil merchants earning like a few million a month - I'm just young and ignorant and I miss my Gunbound.
(c)(iii) To what extent do you accept the claim that petrol price elasticity of demand for recreational and social travel lies at the upper end of the range? [3]
I accept it to a certain extent, but I'm not going to tell you what this "certain" means. For one, I think that recreational and social travel should be done by foot, and not by cars. These tourists should learn not to be so lazy and take their silly cars all over the place - because they produce carbon monoxide and it harms the earth's ozone layer. So whether it lies at the upper end of the range or not - I think they should stop taking cars altogether. Together we can save the earth!
(d) The authors claim rising petrol prices have "undeniable short and long term implications for the ... parking [industry]."
Imagine you are the CEO of Australia's leading car park company, how might rising petrol prices affect your company? [10]
As mentioned earlier, everyone should stop using cars so essentially my company will go bankrupt. But since there are stupid people in this world who will not listen to such great environmental-friendly advice, we must also take precautions for that. To deter others from getting cars, I guess that as a big powerful CEO, I will raise my prices to crazy levels so that no one will want to buy cars anymore.
However, assuming that I will lose my job if there are no more carparks, then maybe I'll consider lowering the price a bit. After all, if I were the CEO of Australia's leading car park company, I would want to earn lots of Aussie dollars then run back home to Singapore to boost my economy. But going back to the real world, I doubt I can become an Australian car park company CEO as I look set to fail my Economics test. Meaning this one.
That wraps it all up for Paper 1 - Case Study. Now on to more stupid questions in Paper 2. I think I am in deep shit for that paper, since I left one 25-mark question UNDONE!!! Which was kinda crazy but then again the question looked so stupid I decided that I didn't have time to do it. So I just skipped Question 1. 25 marks gone down the drain.
Let's now review the more important Question 2. If I am going to pass Econs, I'd have to score full marks for this. Watch the brilliant way I fashion my essay.
2(a) Distinguish with examples between internal and external economies of scale.
Damn. This is a tough question. It actually depends what type of scale you are talking about - fish scales, weighing scale, pH scales.. etc. If you're talking about fish scales, then it's internal parts will probably be the.. inside of a fish skin? Sorry but I don't take Biology so I can't give you details - you'd have to make do with a rough guideline. As for the external economies of scale, it would have to be water! Since fish live in water, it's only logical that water lies outside their scale.
I don't make weighing scales so I don't know what goes inside them. And as for pH scales - the whole thing consists of 1 to 14, and the internal or external part is really relative to your position. Taking pH 1 to be neutral, then everything on the scale would be external. Taking pH 14 to be neutral, then everything would be internal! But since pH 7 is neutral, then acids would be internal and alkalis would be external. Right I'm now also very confident of passing Chemistry. This is what I mean by multi-disciplinary studying! Killing two subjects with one essay!
2(b) "Large firms have such overwhelming technical and financial advantages that the survival of the small businesses is surprising." Discuss. [15]
This is stupid. Just because a company is large doesn't mean it's firm. If you see a 200kg sumo wrestler, there can be no dispute that he is large. But is he firm? OF COURSE NOT. He'd probably have loads of flabs at his stomach and would have difficulty balancing on his legs which would lead him to being anything but firm. Thus why the discrimination against small businesses?
I would gladly discuss the topic if the examiner is willing to take a more objective view, but from the way he has phrased his question it's bloody obvious he is a big bully who just wants small businesses to crash. No I don't think that will happen. Let's take a look at a local example - Stall 2 at RJC canteen. Even though they might be small and the auntie can be a total bi*** at times, they don't look to be dying. This is because small businesses will have smaller purposes to fill. Not everything about the world is big - and sometimes big businesses cannot fit into small things. Therefore the argument that large firms dominate does not stand.
As for the "overwhelming technical and financial advantages", that might not be the most important thing in setting up a business. If you'd study the Singaporean educational system, you'll find that the Normal (Technical) stream has the least students, and they certainly do not become great CEOs. Technical advantage is not the "in" thing - it's better to have Express students. Though arguably there are also a bunch of them who are idiots (like me), the majority of Express students will get better jobs. Thus express advantage is more important. Ya whatever.
Finally, we look to the point of financial advantages. Quote anonymous, "Money is the root of all evil". And quote another anonymous, "Money is useless". And to quote yet another anonymous, "Money cannot buy you happiness." Hence from the quotes, you find that a financial advantage might not be much of an advantage after all. It's like having a good ability to thieve is not much of an ability - unless you consider going to jail an ability. Then maybe yes. But going by the views of an upright and moral citizen (like me), this should not be accepted in modern-day society where people start losing their values.
And with thus I end my discussion - small businesses pawn large firms for lots of gold!
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I think I'll do well for my Econs paper. =)
I'd be glad to report the results to you next week when I get back my beautifully written essays!
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