WACE Economics exam 2026Exam: Tue 10 Nov · SCSA timetable
Your WACE Economics exam:
When and how long
- Economics9.20 am start3 h plus 10 min reading time
SCSA: arrive 30 minutes before the examination start time. Every ATAR written exam has 10 minutes reading time and 3 hours working time unless otherwise indicated. The timetable is final, and no allowance is made for misreading it.
Source: 2026 Year 12 ATAR course written examinations timetable (SCSA), checked Wednesday 23 September 2026. Where a start time, reading time or duration isn't shown, the timetable doesn't publish it: check your personal timetable and the front of your paper.
What the exam covers
We don't have past-paper frequency data for this exam, so here is the course, module by module. Make sure every module is covered.
Night-before and exam-morning checklists
The night before
Exam-week survival kit: The last 7 days · The night before and exam morning · What to bring, and what's banned · How to use reading time · If you're sick or something goes wrong · Handling exam-week stress.
Last-week revision
WACE Economics cram sheet
Key formulas, definitions and facts copied from our Economics syllabus pages. One page when printed.
Unit 3: Australia and the Global Economy
Terms of trade = (Export price index / Import price index) x 100. A reading above the base year (100) means export prices have risen faster than import prices.
Globalisation is the increasing integration of national economies into a single global economy through the freer movement of goods and services, capital, technology, labour and ideas across borders.
A country should specialise in and export the good it produces at the lowest opportunity cost, and import the good where its opportunity cost is higher. This holds even when one country has an absolute advantage in both goods.
The exchange rate is the price of one currency in terms of another, for example AUD/USD. It can be quoted bilaterally or as the Trade Weighted Index (TWI), a weighted average against the currencies of Australia's major trading partners.
Unit 4: Macroeconomic Theory and Economic Policy
Economic growth is an increase in the productive capacity and output of an economy over time, measured as the annual percentage change in real gross domestic product (real GDP), which is GDP adjusted for inflation.
Inflation rate = ((CPI in current period - CPI in previous period) / CPI in previous period) x 100. For example, if the CPI rises from 130 to 134.5, inflation is 4.5 divided by 130, times 100, about 3.5 percent.
Unemployment rate = (number unemployed / labour force) x 100. Participation rate = (labour force / working-age population) x 100. For example, with 0.7 million unemployed and a labour force of 14 million, the unemployment rate is 5 percent.
Fiscal policy is the use of the Commonwealth government's taxation and expenditure, set out in the annual federal Budget (delivered in May by the Treasurer), to influence the level of aggregate demand and achieve macroeconomic objectives.