What this practice covers
These questions are drawn from past IB Economics papers and filtered to competitive market equilibrium. 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.
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What examiners see students get wrong here
These are the errors that cost marks on competitive market equilibrium, taken from our own topic notes. Read them before you practise and you will recognise the traps in the questions.
- Confusing a surplus or shortage (a disequilibrium at a given price) with a shift of a curve.
- Shifting a curve to correct a shortage. Shortages are corrected by price changes and movements along the curves.
- Forgetting to relabel the new equilibrium price and quantity on the diagram.
- Ignoring the price mechanism's three functions when asked how resources are reallocated.
- Claiming a determinate outcome when both curves shift.
- In surplus calculations, using the wrong intercept, or the pre-shift quantity as the base.
- Saying the market is "efficient" without explaining that total surplus is maximised where price equals marginal cost.
- Treating allocative efficiency as though it also meant the outcome was fair.
Revise it first
If any of the above is unfamiliar, work through the notes before practising: Competitive Market Equilibrium revision notes.