MATSEC IM Economics

It is administered by the MATSEC Examinations Board at L-Università ta' Malta. The Board's pages carry the regulations, guidelines and policies, syllabi, current session information, applications, past papers, and marking schemes and exemplars. For anything binding - dates, fees, entry requirements - contact the Board directly rather than relying on third-party summaries.

The authoritative content list is the current MATSEC syllabus document for Intermediate Economics, published under Syllabi on the Board's site. Always download the version for your examination session, because syllabi are revised. Use that document to build a checklist of topics, then map each past-paper question back to a syllabus heading so you can see which areas recur.

Start with the current syllabus and build a topic checklist. Then work through past papers and exemplars chronologically, marking each attempt against the published marking scheme. Keep an error log recording why you lost marks - definition imprecision, missing diagrams, no evaluation, poor application to the question's context - and revise those weaknesses rather than rereading notes you already know.

Both are published by the MATSEC Examinations Board on its website, under Past Papers and under Marking Schemes and Exemplars. Use the schemes actively: after each timed attempt, compare your answer wording with the accepted points and note what the examiner rewards. This is usually more valuable than reading model answers passively, because it trains you to structure responses for marks.

Paper structure, duration, question counts and weighting are set out in the current syllabus and current session information published by the Board. These details change between sessions, so confirm them from the official documents for your sitting. Do not rely on figures from older study guides, including this one, which deliberately states none.

Retake arrangements are governed by the Board's regulations, not by individual schools or tutors. Check the Regulations section on the MATSEC website and, if anything is unclear, contact the Board on +356 2340 2814/5/6 or at [email protected]. Confirm the application window for the session in which you intend to resit before planning your revision.

Intermediate sits between the Secondary Education Certificate and Advanced Level in demand. Expect precise definitions, correct diagram use and structured application, but less extended theoretical analysis than Advanced. The commonest weakness is vague, everyday-language answers; examiners reward accurate terminology, labelled diagrams and answers tied explicitly to the scenario given in the question.

Typical causes are misreading the command word, writing everything known about a topic instead of answering the question asked, omitting or mislabelling diagrams, giving definitions without application to the case, and running out of time because of poor question allocation. Practise under timed conditions and rehearse a short planning step before writing each longer answer.

Follow the sequence in the current syllabus rather than jumping around, since later topics usually assume earlier ones. Within each topic, learn definitions and diagrams first, then practise short application questions, then longer structured answers. Revisit earlier topics in timed mixed papers so recall is spaced rather than crammed, and keep the marking scheme beside you as you mark.

Phone +356 2340 2814/5/6, email [email protected], or write to MATSEC Examinations Board, University of Malta, Msida MSD 2080, Malta. Use these channels for confirmation of session dates, application deadlines, fees and access arrangements, since these are set per session and are not reproduced in this independent guide.