Practice to Mastery

One book, two courses: high school microeconomics and macroeconomics, worked through problem by problem.

Practice to Mastery: Solving Classic Problems in High School Economics is a worked-problem guide for students taking economics in high school, including students preparing for AP® Microeconomics and AP® Macroeconomics. Its 16 chapters are organized in two parts. Part I, Microeconomics (Chapters 1-9), runs from scarcity, opportunity cost, and comparative advantage through supply and demand, elasticity, consumer choice, production and costs, perfect competition, monopoly and oligopoly, factor markets, and market failure. Part II, Macroeconomics (Chapters 10-16), covers GDP, unemployment, and inflation; aggregate demand and aggregate supply; the multiplier and fiscal policy; money and banking; monetary policy and the loanable funds market; the Phillips curve and economic growth; and international economics. Both courses are covered in one book.

This is not a problem bank. Each chapter takes three or four classic "core problems," 54 in all, and works every one through the same eight sections: The Problem; What Kind of Problem Is This?; The General Approach; Step by Step; Now Change One Thing...; More Than One Way; Watch Out; and The Takeaway. The heart of the book is Now Change One Thing...: the same setup, with one condition changed at a time, so you can see which curve moves, which stays put, and which numbers change with it. Problem 1 of Chapter 2 starts with one market for bubble tea and, on a single supply and demand graph, works through a shift in demand, a shift in supply, both at once, a price ceiling, a price floor, a tax, and a subsidy. Problem 1 of Chapter 11 does the same with one AD-AS graph: a demand shock, a supply shock, a recessionary gap, an inflationary gap, and the economy's adjustment in the long run. With more than 200 variations in all, learning one core problem means learning a whole family of problems.

On economics exams, a correct, fully labeled graph earns points on its own. This book teaches graphing as a core skill: what goes on each axis, how to label each curve, how to mark an equilibrium, a shift, and an area, and how to tell a new curve from an old one. Its 102 original black-and-white diagrams use the same labels and symbols as American classrooms, textbooks, and exams (P, Q, D, S, MC, ATC, MR, AD, SRAS, LRAS), so you can copy them directly.

Everything uses algebra and graphs only; there is no calculus. "Marginal" always means the change that comes from one more unit, computed row by row from tables or read from the slope of a straight-line demand curve. Discussions of U.S. institutions, such as the current definition of M1, the zero reserve requirement, the Federal Reserve's ample-reserves framework, and the interest rate on reserve balances (IORB), reflect current practice as of 2026. All problems, data, and diagrams are original, and every chapter has been independently reviewed and every number recomputed.

Who this book is for: high school students taking economics; students preparing for the AP® Microeconomics and AP® Macroeconomics exams; and teachers, tutors, and parents who want a clear, step-by-step way to explain the course.

A Chinese edition, 美高经济学解题手册 (A Bridge to Solving Classic Problems: High School Economics), covers the same problems and solutions for Chinese-speaking readers.

AP® and Advanced Placement® are registered trademarks of the College Board, which was not involved in the production of, and does not endorse, this product.