CU Boulder ECON 2020: Principles of Macroeconomics
ECON 2020 is the macroeconomics half of CU Boulder's principles pair: GDP, inflation, unemployment, aggregate demand and supply, and fiscal and monetary policy. It's taught in large lectures with exams carrying most of the grade.
Fennie is independent and not affiliated with University of Colorado Boulder. This is an unofficial study guide.
What makes it hard
Macro questions chain: a policy or shock goes in, and you trace the ripple through output, prices, and employment, which requires reasoning inside the AD/AS model rather than recalling definitions. The material also feels deceptively familiar from headlines, so students under-study and then meet questions demanding more precision than news intuition provides.
What you'll cover
- • GDP and measuring the economy
- • Unemployment and inflation
- • Aggregate demand and aggregate supply
- • Fiscal policy
- • Monetary policy and the Federal Reserve
- • Economic growth
The ECON 2020 study guide
How to study for CU Boulder ECON 2020, step by step.
- 1
Treat familiar-sounding terms as new and exact
ECON 2020's concepts feel known from the news, which is exactly why students under-prepare. Inflation, unemployment, and GDP have precise course definitions the exams test against your headline intuition.
- 2
Make AD/AS a working machine
Know what shifts aggregate demand, what shifts aggregate supply, and how output and prices respond. Nearly every policy question in the course is a ride through this one model.
- 3
Drill 'what happens if' chains
Rate cut, spending increase, supply shock: trace each through AD/AS to output, prices, and unemployment until the chain is automatic. Definitions alone fail these exams.
- 4
Keep the measurement material warm
GDP accounting, unemployment categories, and inflation measures are early content that resurfaces all term. Brief weekly review keeps those easy points easy.
- 5
Practice in the real exam format
Timed multiple-choice sets mixing chains, definitions, and graph reading across all covered chapters; the format itself is part of what you're training for.
Today
Today's ECON 2020 plan
What a Fennie Daily Plan looks like for ECON 2020. Yours is built from your own syllabus and adapts every day to your deadlines and progress.
First plan free, no card required. Fennie is independent and unaffiliated with your school.
FAQ
Is ECON 2020 at CU Boulder hard?
Accessible but exam-driven: questions chain effects through macro models, which takes practiced reasoning rather than news-level familiarity. Students who drill scenario chains land above the curve consistently.
Is ECON 2020 harder than ECON 2010?
Opinions split: macro has fewer calculations but more abstract model-chaining, while micro is heavier on graphs and computation. Students who prefer concrete problems usually find 2010 easier; big-picture thinkers often prefer 2020.
How do I do well in ECON 2020?
Practice 'what happens if' chains: take each policy tool and shock and trace it through AD/AS to output, prices, and unemployment until automatic. The exams test the chain, not the vocabulary.