SACE Stage 2 Economics Subject Outline (current outline, for the 2026 examination)
Stage 2 Economics is assessed 70% by the school (Assessment Type 1: Folio, 40%, three or four tasks up to 4000 words in total; Assessment Type 2: Economic Project, 30%, up to 2000 words) and 30% by an external examination (Assessment Type 3), set and marked by the SACE Board. The examination is a paper exam — not an e-exam — of 130 minutes with no separate reading time, printed as two write-on question booklets (Question booklet 1 and Question booklet 2), each allowed approximately 65 minutes. All questions are compulsory: there is no choice of question, no multiple-choice section and no separate essay section. The 2023–2025 papers have each totalled 80 marks (booklet splits of 41/39, 40/40 and 38/42), a consistent format the subject outline itself does not state a mark total for. Booklet 1 has, in every recent paper, built one extended linked-market scenario around microeconomic content (demand and supply, elasticity, market structure, surplus and deadweight loss, market failure and intervention); Booklet 2 has built a constructed economy around macroeconomic content (indicators, the business cycle, circular flow, the AD–AS model, fiscal/monetary/supply-side policy and the exchange rate). Students may use black or blue pen and a sharp dark pencil for diagrams; no calculator, formula sheet or data booklet is permitted or supplied. The SACE Board reports a grade from A+ to E– against performance standards; it publishes no mark cut-offs and no grade-to-ATAR conversion.
Past papers on this subject span more than one subject outline. Papers written under an older one still work as practice, but the topics they test have changed — the index labels every paper with the subject outline it was set under.
Earlier outline — check current requirements · 2023–2024Current subject outline (2025 onwards) — mean/median/R interpreted, not calculated · 2025–present
The topics, one by one
Each area below lists the concepts named in the subject outline, what the SACE Board exam asks of them, and the mistake that most often costs marks.
- Economic inquiry skills
- Data analysis
- Microeconomics
- Macroeconomics
- Assessment Type 1: Folio and Assessment Type 2: Economic Project (school-assessed — not examined)
Area 1 of 5
Economic inquiry skills
This strand is not a separate exam section but the skill every question is built to test: applying scarcity, choice, opportunity cost and the production possibility curve to an unfamiliar scenario, identifying the objective at stake, and reasoning through the intended and unintended consequences of a decision for named stakeholders. Every question in both booklets opens with a constructed fictional economy — a country, a market or a pair of firms — and expects the answer to be built from that stimulus rather than from memorised theory.
What the subject outline lists under this area · 4 points
- Scarcity, choice and opportunity cost
- Production possibility curve
- Economic decision-making and its intended and unintended consequences
- Applying concepts and models to unfamiliar, evidence-based scenarios
What the exam asks
Threaded through every part of both booklets rather than tested on its own. Recent papers have built entire questions around one running scenario (linked cacao-bean, chocolate-production and chocolate-retail markets in 2025; linked potato, frozen-fry and family-restaurant markets in 2023), so a student who does not read the stimulus carefully cannot access the marks even for a well-known concept.
Where marks go missing
Writing a general, textbook explanation that never engages with the numbers, firms or country named in the stimulus. Subject Assessment Advice has repeatedly noted that explain, justify and analyse responses lose marks when they could apply to any scenario rather than the one given.
Area 2 of 5
Data analysis
Students read and interpret qualitative and quantitative data — graphs, tables and payoff matrices — including the direction of a relationship between variables and what a given R and R-squared value implies about its strength. Since a 2025 subject outline change, mean, median, quantiles and variance are used and interpreted from given figures but never calculated by the student, and R and R-squared are interpreted, never calculated.
What the subject outline lists under this area · 4 points
- Reading qualitative and quantitative data from tables and graphs
- Identifying trends, relationships and the direction of correlation
- Interpreting (not calculating) mean, median, quantiles and variance
- Interpreting R and R-squared without calculation
What the exam asks
The 2025 paper gave a real-GDP-growth-versus-consumer-confidence graph with an R-squared of 0.513 and asked students to state the direction of the relationship and explain what that R-squared value means; the 2023 paper gave mean (18 kg) and median (17 kg) fry-consumption figures and asked what the gap between them suggests about the underlying distribution across income quintiles.
Where marks go missing
Stating a value without saying what it means. An answer that only restates the R-squared figure, or says a distribution is ‘skewed’ without saying which way and why, earns no credit; the mark is for the plain-English interpretation, referencing the actual number given.
3 real SACE Board questions indexed on this area →
Area 3 of 5
Microeconomics
Covers demand and supply and the difference between a shift and a movement; price elasticity of demand and of supply, including the total revenue method; the four market structures and how each affects price, choice, quality, efficiency and profit; consumer surplus, producer surplus and deadweight loss; price ceilings, price floors, subsidies and taxes; market failure (public goods, uncompetitive markets, externalities, asymmetric information) and measures to address it; and duopoly modelled through simple 2×2 game theory (payoff matrices and Nash equilibrium). Cost curves and marginal-revenue profit-maximisation diagrams are not in the outline and are not examined.
What the subject outline lists under this area · 8 points
- Demand and supply, equilibrium, and shifts versus movements
- Price elasticity of demand and of supply (incl. total revenue)
- Market structures: perfect competition, monopolistic competition, oligopoly, monopoly
- Consumer surplus, producer surplus and deadweight loss
- Price ceilings, price floors, subsidies and taxes
- Market failure: public goods, uncompetitive markets, externalities, asymmetric information
- Measures to address market failure
- Duopoly and simple 2x2 game theory (payoff matrices, Nash equilibrium)
What the exam asks
Booklet 1 has built one extended, linked-market scenario in every recent paper: cacao beans, chocolate production and chocolate retailing in Country X (2025); potatoes, frozen fries and family-restaurant meals in Country A (2023). Tasks mix ‘complete the diagram’ items (supply shocks, price floors, subsidies, externalities) with elasticity interpretation, market-structure justification, a duopoly payoff matrix, and an evaluate or assess item on how well a market structure serves consumers or producers.
Where marks go missing
An incomplete or unlabelled diagram. Subject Assessment Advice for 2023–2025 has repeatedly penalised diagrams missing the new equilibrium point, the shifted curve's label, or the requested shaded area (consumer surplus, producer surplus or deadweight loss) — a correct written explanation with an incomplete diagram does not earn full marks.
19 real SACE Board questions indexed on this area →
Area 4 of 5
Macroeconomics
Covers the macroeconomic objectives (full employment, price stability, economic growth) and their indicators (unemployment rate, participation rate, NAIRU, CPI inflation, real GDP), the phases of the business cycle and leading/lagging/coincident indicators, the five-sector circular flow and the expenditure multiplier, the Monetarist AD–AS model with SRAS and LRAS, demand management (fiscal and monetary) and supply-side policy, and floating exchange rates. The expenditure-multiplier formula itself is not required knowledge.
What the subject outline lists under this area · 8 points
- Full employment: unemployment rate, participation rate, NAIRU
- Price stability: inflation via CPI; demand-pull and cost-push inflation
- Economic growth: measuring and the limitations of GDP
- Leading, lagging and coincident indicators and the business cycle
- Five-sector circular flow and the expenditure multiplier
- Monetarist AD-AS model with SRAS and LRAS
- Demand management (fiscal and monetary) and supply-side policy
- Floating exchange rates
What the exam asks
Booklet 2 has built a constructed economy in every recent paper — Country T's growth downturn and multiplier debate and Country M's cost-push inflation and currency-market conflict (2025); Country X's inflationary gap and Country W's growth-versus-deficit trade-off (2023) — requiring a completed AD–AS or currency-market diagram plus an evaluate or discuss item weighing one policy against the objectives using the scenario's own data.
Where marks go missing
Naming a policy tool without tracing it through to the specific curve that shifts and why. Evaluate and discuss items need both a benefit and a limitation plus a stated judgement tied to the stimulus; a one-sided answer, or one that never returns to the data given, is capped well short of full marks.
19 real SACE Board questions indexed on this area →
Area 5 of 5
Assessment Type 1: Folio and Assessment Type 2: Economic Project (school-assessed — not examined)
The 70% school-assessed component sits outside the external examination entirely. The Folio (40% of the subject) is three or four tasks totalling a maximum of 4000 words; the Economic Project (30%) is a single investigation of up to 2000 words. Both are set and marked by the school and moderated by the SACE Board across the eight teaching contexts.
What the exam asks
Not assessed on the November paper at all — the examination (Assessment Type 3, 30%) draws only on the core topic (inquiry skills, data analysis, microeconomics, macroeconomics).
Where marks go missing
Treating a teaching context as examinable core content — for example expecting a comparative-advantage calculation or an HDI figure on the exam because it appeared in a context-based folio task. Contexts shape classroom scenarios; they are not a separate item bank for the external exam.
Common questions
Is the Stage 2 Economics exam a paper exam or an e-exam?
A paper exam. The 2026 examinations timetable prints Economics [2ENO20] in black text (not the blue used for e-exams or the red used for subjects with extra reading time), sitting on Tuesday 10 November 2026 at 1.30 pm South Australian time for 130 minutes. There is no separate reading time, and the paper is answered in two write-on question booklets using black or blue pen and, for diagrams, a sharp dark pencil.
Do I need to calculate the mean, median or R-squared myself?
No. The subject outline states these statistics are used and interpreted, not calculated by the student. You will be given a value (a mean, a median, an R-squared coefficient) in the stimulus and asked to explain what it shows — for example, what an R-squared of 0.513 says about the strength of a relationship, or what a gap between a mean and a median suggests about a distribution.
What's actually tested on the exam versus the Folio and Economic Project?
The exam (Assessment Type 3, 30% of the grade) tests only the core topic: economic inquiry skills, data analysis, microeconomics and macroeconomics, through constructed scenarios. The Folio (40%) and Economic Project (30%) make up the other 70% of the grade, are set and marked at school level across the eight teaching contexts, and are not simulated by exam-style past-paper practice.
Which subject outline applies to the 2026 exam?
The current Stage 2 Economics Subject Outline, effective from 2024 with a clarification applying from 2025 onwards (the change confirming that mean, median, quantiles, variance, R and R-squared are interpreted rather than calculated). Economics is listed as a group 3 subject in the Subject Renewal Develop phase during 2026, but no renewed outline applies to the November 2026 examination.