An A in Maths Gets You Into Economics. It Won’t Get You Through It

Edited by Arta Uka.

Why the skills you crammed for your A-levels are exactly the ones your professor will take for granted.

The uncomfortable truth about A-level exam success

"You got an A. Your university professor does not care how you got it."

Taking microeconomics in your first year is non-negotiable for any economics student. The first two weeks tend to feel manageable with utilities and their axioms. Then, usually around week three, something shifts. The lecturer’s board fills up faster, steps get skipped in the name of “more important” results, and if you have not touched mathematics in a while, even the lecture slides start to feel like a different language. You do not just lose the algebra. You lose the thread of the economics argument it was carrying.

The eight skills below are the ones most likely to have quietly faded, and where each one reappears in your first year (and beyond!). After working with economics students at Axiom Tutoring, I can tell you that gaps in these eight areas come up more reliably than almost anything else.

The eight skills most likely to have faded and why each one matters

Skill (A-level version)	Where it reappears
Equation of a line Finding slope and intercept; writing y = mx + c from two points	Micro Supply and demand curves are linear functions. The slope is the rate at which price changes with quantity (which is elasticity in disguise). Budget constraints are lines; their slope is a relative price ratio.
Solving equations with one unknown Isolating a variable using inverse operations; collecting like terms	Micro/Macro Solving for equilibrium price, break-even output, or the tax rate that raises a given revenue. Every time a model has one free variable and a constraint, you're here.
Quadratic equations Factorising; applying the quadratic formula; interpreting roots	Micro Profit, revenue, and cost functions are frequently quadratic. The roots are break-even points; the vertex is the profit-maximising or cost-minimising output. Recognising the shape matters as much as the algebra.
Working with fractions Adding, subtracting, multiplying algebraic fractions; simplifying rational expressions	Micro/Macro Elasticity is a ratio of percentage changes. Average cost is total cost divided by quantity. Index numbers, growth rates, multipliers; fractions are the grammar of quantitative economics.
Systems of equations Solving two simultaneous equations by substitution or elimination	Micro/Macro Market equilibrium is the intersection of supply and demand: two equations, solved simultaneously. IS-LM, AD-AS, and Cournot duopoly are all systems. One of the highest-frequency techniques in first-year economics.
Derivatives Power rule, chain rule; finding and classifying stationary points	Micro/Macro/Econometrics Marginal cost, marginal revenue, and marginal utility are all derivatives. Profit maximisation requires setting the derivative to zero. The chain rule appears whenever one variable depends on another; utility as a function of consumption, consumption as a function of income. The OLS first-order conditions are derived by differentiating the sum of squared residuals. Also used for marginal effects. The income multiplier is derived via differentiation.
Logarithms & exponentials Log rules; solving e^x = a; differentiating ln(x) and e^f(x)	Macro/Econometrics Continuous compounding, GDP growth paths, and present value all use exponentials. Taking logs linearises multiplicative models: the Cobb-Douglas production function becomes a linear regression the moment you log both sides.
Summation notation (Σ) Reading and evaluating sigma expressions; properties of sums; expanding Σxᵢ, Σxᵢ², Σxᵢyᵢ	Econometrics/Statistics The mean, variance, covariance, and every OLS formula are written in sigma notation. A student who can't parse Σ(xᵢ − x̄)² will lose the thread of regression derivations entirely, not because the maths is hard, but because the notation is unfamiliar. This is the one skill with no A-level equivalent for many students, making it the most likely blind spot.

There is a self-assessment test accompanying this article. You can find it here: https://www.axiomtutoring.com/maths-diagnostic

For each row of this table, there are exercises that respectively check your knowledge. Ask yourself "Can I do the A-level version in under two minutes, without notes?" If not, that concept is a gap. Two or more gaps and the first few weeks of term will be harder than they need to be.

This is for you if:

• You are still at A-level: you have the most time and the most to gain. Learning this material properly now rather than just passing it, changes what the first term feels like.

• You are about to start your first year: the window is narrower but still open. A few focused weeks before term is worth far more than trying to catch up once the syllabus is moving.

• You are a second-year student repeating material: the gaps are identifiable and fixable. The table above is your map.

Why economics professors take your maths for granted

“They are not being unkind. They genuinely assume you remember.”

University teaching assumes prerequisite knowledge is active, not passive. There is no recapping A-level content. While some universities run mathematics workshops before term begins, revisiting foundational skills will not be a priority for lecturers who have a full syllabus to cover. The speed of economics content, moving from equilibrium to optimisation to modelling, leaves no room for revision. Marginal cost is introduced as a derivative. Elasticity appears as a ratio the moment you first encounter it. Budget constraints are solved as systems, without preamble. When you hit those moments unprepared, you do not just lose the algebra; you lose the thread of the economics argument it was carrying.

The difference between executing a technique and understanding it

“Cramming teaches you to pattern-match. Economics requires you to think.”

At A-level, questions signal which technique to use. In economics, you have to diagnose the problem yourself. If you drilled the quadratic formula, you may still not recognise that a profit function is a quadratic because the framing is different. The same applies to the chain rule: mechanically differentiating a composite function does not automatically mean you understand why a utility-of-consumption model requires it. In econometrics, the subject where I have seen this most clearly, it can take weeks for students to see that the OLS estimated line is simply an equation of a line. The habit of translating every algebraic result back into economic language is what separates strong quantitative economists from those who are merely executing steps.

When the gap feels like a verdict on your ability

The maths isn't the only thing that freezes students. The story they tell themselves about the maths is just as paralysing.

Ever had the feeling that everyone else in the lecture theatre already knows this, and you are the only one who does not? You are not the only one. In fact, this is called impostor syndrome (IP), a concept first introduced by Clance and Imes (1978) based on their clinical work with well-educated women including students, faculty members and professionals. IP is a psychological experience of feelings of self-doubt and intellectual lack regardless of success. Studies using validated scales put prevalence among university students anywhere between 9% and 82% depending on population and measurement tool (Bravata et al., 2020).

This tends to be more acute with maths. Research consistently finds maths anxiety to be prevalent among university students, and a meta-analysis found it is robustly and negatively associated with maths performance (Zhang et al., 2019). For economics students specifically, there is evidence that those pursuing finance and economics report higher levels of maths anxiety than students in many other fields. It rarely sounds like “I can’t do maths”. More often it sounds like “I can’t do maths fast enough, in public, in front of people who seem to find it effortless”. And the silence problem makes it worse: if you do not ask questions in lectures because you fear revealing a gap, you end up with a larger gap and the anxiety compounds the deficit (Qasem et al., 2025).

Taking the test accompanying this article is not an exposure of inadequacy; it is information, and information is what makes gaps fixable. The person sitting next to you in that lecture theatre is almost certainly running the same internal monologue. The ones who close the gap fastest are not the ones who feel most confident; they are the ones who stop pretending to be confident and start doing the work.

How to rebuild these skills before the course demands them

A realistic checklist, work through each step at your own pace:

• Step 1: Run the diagnostic honestly. Do each exercise without notes and under mild time pressure. The goal is not a score; it is an accurate map of where you actually are, not where you think you are.

• Step 2: Pick your two weakest areas and go deep. Do not try to rebuild everything. Derivatives and systems of equations cause the most compounding damage in Year 1. If those are your gaps, start there. Work through problems in economics contexts, not pure algebra: find the profit-maximising output, not just the stationary point.

• Step 3: Introduce summation notation from scratch. Many A-level students have never seen Σ used formally. It is not difficult, but it is unfamiliar, and unfamiliarity in a lecture theatre compounds quickly. Spend a few sessions just reading and writing sigma expressions until the notation stops feeling like a barrier.

• Step 4: Do one timed, mixed problem set. No topic labels, no hints. Replicate the conditions under which economics will actually test you: a question that does not announce which technique it needs. This is the habit the course will demand, so practise it before the course does.

  
  

A note on what this isn't

"This is not about making economics easy. It is about making sure maths is never the reason you fall behind."

When you are struggling with the maths, the temptation is to disengage from the economics; to stop following the argument and start copying the steps. That is the moment the subject stops making sense and starts feeling like a series of hurdles. The goal of everything above is to stop that from happening. Not to make economics easy, because it is not, but to make sure that maths never becomes the reason you lose the thread. Your goal is to stay in the room intellectually: to follow what the model is saying, not just what the algebra is doing. If you would like to work through these foundations with support, this is exactly what we do at Axiom Tutoring.

The students who do this work before term starts are not the ones who find economics easy. They are the ones who find it worth the effort.

References:

Bravata, D. M., et al. (2020). Prevalence, predictors, and treatment of impostor syndrome: A systematic review. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 35(4), 1252–1275. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-019-05364-1 

Clance, P. R., & Imes, S. A. (1978). The impostor phenomenon in high achieving women: Dynamics and therapeutic intervention. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice, 15(3), 241–247. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0086006

Qasem, N., Alqaisi, N., Alsalhy, R., Haj Mohammad, N., Alsadi, M., & Shehadeh, J. (2025). Imposter syndrome among university students: Impact on levels of stress, anxiety, and depression. Journal of American College Health, 31(2), 127–134. https://doi.org/10.1177/10784535251323005 

Zhang, J., Zhao, N., & Kong, Q. P. (2019). The relationship between math anxiety and math performance: A meta-analytic investigation. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 1613. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01613