Midterm Exam — Instructions

Overview

This is the scored midterm for Principles of Macroeconomics. It checks the first half of the course, Weeks 1 to 7, and the questions those weeks asked. What does "the whole economy" mean, and how do economists picture it? How big is the economy, are prices rising, and who is out of work? Why are some economies so much richer than others? Why do prices and output move together, what is a recession on the diagram, and can a government spend its way out of a downturn?

The midterm has 25 questions, and every question counts the same. Most of them (16) ask you to select exactly one option. Five ask you to judge a true-or-false statement, and four ask you to select every applicable option. Any graph a question needs is described in words inside the question itself, and any figure a question uses is printed there too.

Every question practices a skill you have already used in the weekly quizzes, lecture tutorials, and Model Workshops. Nothing on the midterm comes from outside Weeks 1 to 7.

Coverage and scope

The midterm covers Weeks 1 to 7 and the course's first six objectives. Here is what the drawn form holds, objective by objective, with the weeks its questions come from:

• The tools of macroeconomic modeling (Objective 1, 5 questions): 4 from Week 1 and 1 from Week 4. Expect to tell the economy as a whole from a single market, to explain why a realistic frontier bows outward, to sort the circular flow's money and goods into their markets, and to tell a positive statement from a normative one. Week 4's question reads long-run growth on the production possibilities frontier.
• Measuring output with GDP (Objective 2, 3 questions): 2 from Week 2 and 1 from Week 3. Expect to decide what counts in this year's GDP and what does not, to value output at base-year prices, and to say how the deflator and the CPI differ in the goods each one prices.
• The price level and the labor market (Objective 3, 5 questions): 4 from Week 3 and 1 from Week 6. Expect to turn two CPI levels into an inflation rate, divided by the starting level, to compute a participation rate, and to sort job seekers into frictional, structural, and cyclical unemployment. Week 6's question ties a recession to cyclical unemployment.
• Long-run growth (Objective 4, 2 questions): both from Week 4. Expect the rule of 70 and what it means to call it an approximation.
• The AD–AS model and the business cycle (Objective 5, 7 questions): 4 from Week 5 and 3 from Week 6. Expect the three reasons aggregate demand slopes down, the reason the short-run supply curve slopes up, the crossing of two illustrative linear curves, and naming which curve a change shifts, which way, and where prices and output end up. From Week 6, expect how recessions are officially dated, a gap reported both in dollars and as a percentage of potential, and how a gap can close on its own over time.
• Fiscal policy (Objective 6, 3 questions): all from Week 7. Expect automatic stabilizers, how a year's deficit changes the debt, and which claim in a fiscal-policy argument is positive.

By week, the 25 questions come out like this:

The AD–AS model and the business cycle carry the most questions, 7 of the 25, so give Weeks 5 and 6 the most review time. The modeling tools and the price level and labor market come next with 5 each, then GDP and fiscal policy with 3 each, and growth with 2. Week 3 is the largest single week, with 5 questions. The four questions that ask for every applicable statement come from Weeks 1, 2, 3, and 7. The five true-or-false statements come from Weeks 1, 3, and 4 and two from Week 6. By difficulty, 8 questions are easy, 14 are medium, and 3 are hard, so most sit at a medium level.

Week 8's flow-vs-stock habit is not scored on its own. It still pays off, because it is how you keep a deficit and the debt apart, and Week 7's questions use exactly that distinction.

These notes map the skills the midterm checks. The questions themselves are drawn from the course's question bank and are not listed here.

Instructions

• Attempts: one. The midterm is a single scored attempt.
• Time limit: there is no time limit. Take the time you need, as long as you submit before the exam closes.
• Window: the midterm opens in the Week 8 module and closes at the due time your instructor sets. Start early enough to finish comfortably inside that window.
• Navigation: the questions appear one at a time, and once you move on you cannot go back to an earlier question. Settle each one before you move to the next.
• Materials: every figure a question uses is printed in the question. A few questions ask for a short step, such as a percentage change or the point where two lines cross, and scratch paper is enough for it. Unless your instructor announces otherwise, the midterm is closed-note.
• After you submit: Canvas shows your result. The keyed answers stay hidden so the midterm stays fair for every student.

Academic integrity

The midterm is an individual, scored assessment, and it is closed to AI. Do not use a chatbot or any other AI tool, do not get help from another person, and do not share or post the questions during or after your attempt. These rules come from the course syllabus. The midterm confirms that you personally can compute the measures, read the curves, and interpret the results.

The honest way to prepare is open to you. The study guide, the practice exam, and the exam-prep tutorial rehearse the same skills with fresh variants, and nothing on them appears on the midterm word for word.

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