GCSE Economics: Are students required to calculate elasticities?

With respect to price elasticities of demand and supply, students need to understand what different elasticity values mean but are not required to calculate elasticities. Generally, the command words in the specification indicate the required level of depth, e.g. for price elasticity of demand or supply the command word is "explain", which means that this concept will only be assessed at AO1 or AO2 as described on pages 7 and 16 of the specification.

This doesn’t mean you can’t teach elasticity calculations, for example as a stretch & challenge activity, but we will not directly assess it. As with a lot of topics which expand on the content of the specification, if a student includes such a calculation in an answer and if this helps to improve their answer, it would get credited.