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Consider this hypothetical café question: the price of a drink rises, while customers’ preferences and other influences on demand stay the same. A learner draws a new demand curve to the left. What needs correcting?

The change is in the drink’s own price, so it causes a movement along the existing demand curve. With price on the vertical axis and quantity demanded on the horizontal axis, the new point is higher and further left: customers buy fewer drinks at the higher price. This is a contraction in quantity demanded.

Now change the situation: the drink becomes more popular, with its price unchanged. Customers want more at that price, so demand shifts to the right. A clearer answer names the cause before choosing the diagram: “The change in preferences increases demand at each price.”

Practise by explaining both cases without looking at the original drawing. The useful distinction is whether the price itself changed or another influence changed demand.

Suppose the café raises its price from £2 to £2.20 and quantity demanded falls from 100 to 95 drinks over the same period. These are invented teaching figures. Using the original values for percentage changes:

• Price change: (£0.20 ÷ £2) × 100 = 10%.
• Quantity change: (−5 ÷ 100) × 100 = −5%.
• Price elasticity of demand, or PED: −5% ÷ 10% = −0.5.

Dividing five fewer drinks by a 20p rise misses the percentage changes. PED compares proportional changes. The negative sign shows price and quantity moving in opposite directions here; the magnitude, 0.5, is below one, so demand is price inelastic over this change.

The next step is to connect the calculation to the business. Revenue is price multiplied by quantity sold: £2 × 100 = £200 before, and £2.20 × 95 = £209 after. A stronger response is: “Revenue rises by £9 in this example because the higher price more than offsets the fall in sales. We cannot tell whether profit rises without information about costs.”

This combines the elasticity calculation in AQA GCSE Economics with the distinction between revenue and profit. For AQA A-level work, elasticity extends to income and cross-price relationships, so identify which variable the question changes before selecting a formula.

Use the free introductory meeting to discuss a real piece of attempted work, the course you are following and what you want to improve. It is a meeting about goals, approach and arrangements, rather than a full free teaching lesson.

A focused plan can start with one short task and grow from what it reveals. Here is a suggested sequence to agree with your tutor, adapting the questions and pace to your course.