National Economics Challenge (NEC) 20192019-04-17   Author : Joshua Bai

On March 16th, Tom, Ellie, Jane and I attended the final round of the NEC competition, American National Economics Challenge, and won the silver prize for critical thinking overall team awards and the outstanding organization prize in the high-level “Adam Smith” division.

The NEC, also known as the American National Economics Challenge, is an economics competition held by the American Council for Economic Education. Rounds cover Microeconomics, Macroeconomics, International and current events.

The whole process of getting these awards is a thrilling experience. First, in December of 2018, we successfully passed the preliminary stage at school and got the opportunity to attend the final in Suzhou. We decided to take this chance to challenge ourselves and prove our academic ability in economics. Thus, we began our journey to the final competition.

As we were revising, we found out that nearly half of the syllabus was knowledge that we haven’t learnt in AS and IG economics, because their syllabus is based on the American AP system, as it is an American competition. Also, since 3 of our members were preparing for the SAT exam on March 9th, we had even less time for the preparation of the NEC. Thus, it was tough work for us to master all that knowledge within a month. Here, on behalf of the group, I want to thank the whole economics department for supporting us and giving us tutorials.

When we arrived at Suzhou, we started planning our strategy. Since the knowledge in the syllabus was too much for us to master, we decided to shift our focus from the first round, the multiple choice knowledge test, to the second round, the critical thinking round.

The critical thinking round is a round that tests comprehensive economics ability. Instead of just acquiring the knowledge and completing the multiple choice questions, the critical thinking round requires each team to deeply analyze a specific economic issue and propose a proper course of action in the form of vocal presentation and posters. This round not only tests economics ability, but also the ability to improvise, solve problems, and organise one’s thoughts within a short time.

The night before the competition, we practised several topics for the critical thinking round. At first, we didn’t know what to do for this round, but gradually after some practice, we became more and more familiar and we set up a standardized structure for the response. Also, we distributed our work among group members and thus made our collaboration more efficient.

When the final competition started, we were well prepared for the critical thinking round, and fortunately, the topic that was tested appeared to be familiar to us. Therefore, we performed extremely well in the critical thinking round, we came up with some well-developed points and confidently presented our ideas to the judges.

At the end, we received unanimous praise from the judges, and when the final award ceremony came, fortunately, we received the critical thinking overall team silver award and the outstanding organization award. This was an unforgettable experience for us, one that cultivated our ability and broadened our horizon.