What this practice covers
These questions are drawn from past CIE 9708 papers and filtered to the reasons for international trade. You answer, you find out immediately whether you were right, and you get the reasoning for the correct option and for each distractor. Wrong answers go to a mistakes locker so you can come back to exactly those.
Practice is free. You need an account only so your progress and your mistakes are still there next time.
Start practising Paper 1 MCQs →
What examiners see students get wrong here
These are the errors that cost marks on the reasons for international trade, taken from our own topic notes. Read them before you practise and you will recognise the traps in the questions.
- Defining comparative advantage as producing more with fewer resources. That is absolute advantage.
- Choosing comparative advantage without calculating opportunity cost.
- Assuming the country with absolute advantage in both goods should make both.
- Saying trade shifts the PPC outward.
- Confusing the trading possibility curve with the production possibility curve.
- Calculating terms of trade as import prices divided by export prices.
- Treating a terms-of-trade index above 100 as proof it is currently improving.
- Confusing terms of trade with the balance of trade.
Revise it first
If any of the above is unfamiliar, work through the notes before practising: The Reasons for International Trade revision notes.