AP Microeconomics (OEC10) Course Tips

Want to learn how to succeed in AP Microeconomics (OEC10)? Want to learn if OEC10 is a course you might want to take? We interviewed the instructor, Mr. Brege, and here is his advice about success in OEC10, as well as information about the course.

Note: OEC10 will be replaced by another course for the 2024-2025 school year. The new course will be of equivalent level, but it will not be an AP Course. While the main focus and major topics of the course are expected to remain the same, some aspects of the course could change.

Course Overview

AP Microeconomics (OEC10) is a one-semester course that introduces the fundamentals of Microeconomics. Microeconomics is a field of economics which analyzes economics on an individual level, examining the transactions by, and incentives of, both firms and consumers.

Course topics

Course topics include:

• There are buyers and sellers in a market, which can be represented by supply and demand curves

  • What does the intersection of those curves mean?

  • Those curves have elasticity, which is how much a party (i.e., buyer or seller) will change the quantity of a good they buy or sell as a result of a change in price

• Consumer choices

  • Utility theory

  • Some behavioral economics

• Firms, and how they make choices

  • Fixed and variable costs

  • Relationships between firms

    • Perfect competition

    • Monopoly

    • Oligopoly

    • Monopolistic competition

• Other topics

  • Labor market, financial markets

  • The market doesn’t always provide the optimal outcome for society

  • Risk

  • International trade

  • Impact of taxes

  • Income inequality

Course format

Work (outside of class) in OEC10 includes:

• Pre-class textbook reading—introduction to the terms and concepts that are being studied.

• Weekly chapter quizzes

  • Online on Canvas

  • Students can take the quizzes as many times as they want! It’s about learning the material, not being perfect the first time.

• Weekly homework – more technical aspects of course

  • Here, students dig into the more specific and technical aspects of the material.

  • Students may be asked to perform calculations on particular numbers, rather than only discussing topics in general.

  • Sometimes, the assignment is also about helping students to express themselves in economic terms.

• Midterm and final exams

  • The format of midterms and finals has not been determined for the new course beginning in the 2024-2025 school year. The midterm and final exams may continue or may be replaced by projects.

  • The exams are good practice for taking the AP exam if students wish to do so.

Course Workload

AP Microeconomics has a relatively normal workload for a High School class at OHS. The workload is estimated to be 5-6 hours per week outside of class based on past students’ reports. This time includes pre-class reading, chapter quizzes, and homework assignments. If you are spending significantly more or less time doing coursework for OEC10 outside of class, it is a good idea to reach out to your instructor.

Available Supports

OEC10 does not have peer tutors. However, the instructor holds office hours a couple times a week. You do not need to have a specific question to attend office hours—your instructor is there anyway, and wants to talk to you!  Whether you have a specific question, want to better understand a concept, or just want to talk about econ in general and explore, office hours are a time for you and whatever you need.

In addition, alumni sometimes volunteer to (informally) do peer tutoring or hold review sessions.

Challenging Topics & What Can Help

Topics which students frequently found challenging:

• There is a lot of precise, economic terminology that is taught and used in this course—students sometime struggle to precisely define these terms, as well as to get used to using and remembering them.

• Learning to see the world through the lens of Economics is an adjustment and can be challenging.

• Understanding the incentives and theories related to firms (businesses) can be challenging for students; most students have been a consumer (i.e., they’ve bought things), but they haven’t usually been a firm (selling something).

• Expressing oneself and making points using graphs.

What can help:

• Attending office hours and asking questions in class when you have them will go a long way toward success in this course (and most courses).

• For the economic terminology, make sure you use the terminology as much as possible to get used to it. Where it is possible to use a term, it will both give you practice using/remembering it and be a more concise way to express what you want to say.

• The same goes for using graphs—take every opportunity to express yourself with a graph. It will take time to get used to, but it’s a useful skill once you’ve gotten used to it, and important in this course.

The list of challenging topics is meant to be a guide for where problem points may arise, so that you can best direct your study efforts and be prepared.

Learning Process

Below is the anticipated learning process. Of course, the exact process will be individual, but here is the goal for your understanding level at each step of the way, and what each step is designed to teach.

1. Textbook reading (before class): introduces the concept(s) and terms. Students should try to become familiar with the terminology and the concepts generally, but don’t need to be too concerned with the details or a perfect understanding of the material.

2. Class: this is when students first start getting to work with the concepts on their own. Class time is the bridge between having a high-level, conceptual understanding and using the concepts on one’s own.

3. Homework: continues to give students practice using the concepts independently. By the end of the homework, students should have a full grasp on the concepts and terms and feel comfortable using the concepts independently.