Freakonomics: Class Queen Of The Senior Class

According to Freakonomics “the science of economics is primarily a set of tools, as opposed to a subject matter” (Levitt. Pg. 13). The study of economics involves many different aspects such as societal mores, economic incentives, information asymmetry, and conventional wisdom, just to name a few. As time continues on though the study of economics boils down to humans respond to incentives. How and why do humans respond to incentives the way they do? Are these incentives always for the best? Incentives are what drive people to make the decisions they make there are both good and bad incentives.
In the book Freakonomics, the authors claim to be finding freakonomics as a new field of economics. Chapter one of Freakonomics starts off with economic …show more content…
For instance, my senior year of high school, right around the time of homecoming as we were electing the Senior Class Queen, possibly the worst case of cheating had unfolded right in front of my eyes. One of my close friends named Sable was elected for Class Queen of the Senior Class, an extremly important title in high school. As the time drew closer to our schools homecoming, Sable approached me and confessed how she was making a D in her algebra two class; it was her second time taking it. This meant that if she didn’t bring her grade up, the Senior Class would be without a Class Queen at homecoming. I told her to talk to her teacher about extra credit, and to see if there was any way to bring her grade up to passing. The next day, Sable approached me telling me about her visit with her teacher, and how she had a test just a few days away, a week before homecoming. The teacher had explained that if Sable did really well on the test, then that would bring her grade up to passing. However, that wasn’t everything, Sable stated how the teacher had left the room for a moment, and she decided to see if she couldn’t get the answers for the test because she knew no amount of studying would help her. That’s when my friend showed me a picture of the test answers. I was sworn to secrecy after that and waited impatiently for homecoming to arrive. The day of homecoming I saw Sable introduced as the Senior Class Queen. Sable did this because, to her, the Senior Class having a Class Queen was more important than suspension for cheating. She succeeded in cheating on her test, thus being announced as the Senior Class Homecoming