ICSE Class 10 Economics Previous Year Question Papers with Solutions (2020-2026)

Note the name: this is Economics, a Group II subject. Economic Applications is a separate Group III subject with its own paper, and CISCE's regulations do not let you take both.

Is there an ICSE Economics specimen paper for 2027?

No new one. CISCE's circular of 9 October 2026 lists the ICSE subjects that received 2027 specimen papers, and Economics is not among them. For the remaining subjects the circular says the 2026 rubrics and assessment structure will apply. In practice that makes the 2026 board paper on this page the best specimen you can get.

ICSE Economics 2026 question paper pattern

• 80 marks in 2 hours, with 15 minutes of reading time first. Internal assessment adds 20 marks.
• Section A, 40 marks, compulsory: 16 one-mark MCQs (Question 1) and twelve 2-mark questions (Questions 2 to 4).
• Section B, 40 marks: any four of six questions (5 to 10). Each has two 5-mark parts.
• Five questions came with a picture to read: a heap of salt (what is its elasticity of demand?), a supply curve shifting, price and quantity arrows, a machine, a computer and a hammer (which type of capital?), and a market with one dominant supplier.
• Three Section B parts needed a graph or a schedule: contraction of demand, two elasticity of supply diagrams, and a market demand schedule with three blanks.

At 1½ minutes a mark, a 5-mark part gets about 7 minutes. A labelled diagram eats into that, so draw it quickly with a pencil and ruler and keep the labels short.

Topic-wise marks in the ICSE 2026 Economics paper

We matched every question to the topics in CISCE's Class 10 Economics syllabus. Section A marks are fixed. Section B offers 60 marks, of which you write 40:

• Demand and supply, including elasticity: 10 of 40 in Section A; 15 of 60 in Section B
• Factors of production (land, labour, capital, entrepreneur): 8; 10
• Money and banking: 8; 10
• Public finance (taxes, public expenditure, public debt): 6; 10
• Inflation: 3; 5
• Consumer awareness: 3; 5
• Market forms: 2; 5

Source: CISCE ICSE 2026 Economics question paper and ICSE Economics syllabus for 2027, Gradehunt analysis. CISCE's syllabus places public finance inside its banking unit; it is shown separately here.

Demand and supply led both sections. In Section A it came up through elasticity, normal goods, complementary goods, a supply shift and the Veblen effect. In Section B it took three of the twelve parts, all of them graph or schedule questions.

Every topic also had Section A marks, which nobody can skip. The Section B choice lets you drop two questions, not two topics.

Question types to practise from the 2026 paper

• Case lines. A farmer who grows wheat and needs shoes meets a shoemaker who wants rice (barter). A nurse cannot carry her unused hours into the next day (labour is perishable).
• Statement and assertion items. A pair of statements on what counts as tax revenue (escheat and forfeiture included), and an assertion-reason pair on bank deposits.
• Analogy. Right to be informed is to product information as right to seek redressal is to what?
• Extract-based. A short passage on rising incomes and prices asked you to name the type of inflation and three of its causes.
• Justify or agree. Is risk bearing the backbone of entrepreneurship? Is demand more elastic in the long run?

Short answers in Section A are 2 marks each, so two or three lines with a definition and one example or reason will do. Save the longer writing for Section B.

How to practise with these papers

• Write the 2026 paper first under a 2-hour timer, choosing your four Section B questions in the reading time.
• Then 2025, 2024 and 2023. List the topics that appeared in all of them.
• Use 2022 and 2020 for extra practice once the newer papers are done. The 2022 exam was split into two semesters, so that paper is shorter than a full one.
• Redraw every diagram from the papers until you can label it without looking.

Board questions from the ICSE exams of 2016 to 2026, solved step by step and sorted chapter by chapter, are in Gradehunt's 10 Years Solved Papers (PYQ) for ICSE Class 10.

Also taking Commercial Studies? See the ICSE Class 10 Commercial Studies past papers.