FIN2004/2704X Finance is a 4 MC module. It is an introductory module to finance concepts but it ain't as easy as it sounds. I took this module as an elective and I would provide my perspective as an elective student for this module. This module covered concepts like time value of money, risk and return, bonds, stocks, capital budgeting, long term/short term financial planning and a brief introduction to options.
Assessment
5% Class Participation
10% 3 Tutorial Quizzes (Closed Book, 1 or 2 A4 Cheatsheet)
30% Mid-Term Test (80 Minutes, Closed Book, 1 A4 Cheatsheet)
55% Finals (2 hours, Closed Book, 1 A4 Cheatsheet)
10% 3 Tutorial Quizzes (Closed Book, 1 or 2 A4 Cheatsheet)
30% Mid-Term Test (80 Minutes, Closed Book, 1 A4 Cheatsheet)
55% Finals (2 hours, Closed Book, 1 A4 Cheatsheet)
Lecturer:
Dr. Jumana Zahalka
Dr. Jumana Zahalka
Tutor:
Kang Ya, Bella
Kang Ya, Bella
Textbooks/Readings
McGraw Hill's Fundamentals to Corporate Finance 2nd Edition - By Stephen Ross, Randolph Westerfield, Bradford Jordan, Joseph Lim and Ruth Tan. The textbook does add as a supplement to the lecture notes. BUT for this module, I would not recommend buying the textbook because sometimes, the lecture notes would have different definitions for certain key terms, as compared to the textbook. AND we are supposed to follow the lecture notes definitions. Furthermore, the lecture notes are very detailed for this module, thus I feel there isn't a need to have the textbook.
Lectures
McGraw Hill's Fundamentals to Corporate Finance 2nd Edition - By Stephen Ross, Randolph Westerfield, Bradford Jordan, Joseph Lim and Ruth Tan. The textbook does add as a supplement to the lecture notes. BUT for this module, I would not recommend buying the textbook because sometimes, the lecture notes would have different definitions for certain key terms, as compared to the textbook. AND we are supposed to follow the lecture notes definitions. Furthermore, the lecture notes are very detailed for this module, thus I feel there isn't a need to have the textbook.
Lectures
There is one 2 hour lecture every week (from Weeks 1 - 12, Week 13 is an optional consultation session) and there is no webcast provided (I'm not sure whether this is the same for the finance lectures for biz students). There is one set of lecture notes every week and there is quite a lot, and I mean really quite a lot of slides every week. SO, this module is pretty content heavy. There's always quite a lot of things to cover every week and lectures usually last around 1 hour 30 minutes to 1 hour 45 minutes. Thankfully, there are some portions of the notes that say 'Appendix' or 'Not Examinable' and these parts will not be covered in the lectures.
Dr Zahalka is a really good lecturer in my opinion. She knows her content very well and explains all the concepts really well. It's just that these concepts are very new to me so I take a while to process these information. She will bring in additional examples that are not part of the notes as well so that we can better understand and apply these concepts to real life situations.
After attending the lectures, I found the content to be very applicable to me since I may go into bonds and stocks in future.
Dr Zahalka is a really good lecturer in my opinion. She knows her content very well and explains all the concepts really well. It's just that these concepts are very new to me so I take a while to process these information. She will bring in additional examples that are not part of the notes as well so that we can better understand and apply these concepts to real life situations.
After attending the lectures, I found the content to be very applicable to me since I may go into bonds and stocks in future.
Tutorial
Tutorials took place once a week, and they were 1 hour long. My tutor was a PHD undergraduate. She would usually summarise the content before starting the tutorial. We were split into groups of six. One group has to present the tutorial solutions for that week. And we only need to present once throughout the entire semester. The presentation constitutes into the 5% of the class participation portion (along with tutorial attendance of course). There were no issues with the presentation because we can refer to past year senior tutorial solutions for reference. After the presentation, the tutor will then explain her own solutions. As such, she takes up a lot of time during tutorial. Usually the tutorial will last an hour long or may be even longer. I feel that she can shorten the lecture summary portion so that the tutorial will not take up so much time.
Tutorial Quizzes
There were a total of 3 tutorial quizzes, one on week 6, one on week 10 and the last one on week 13. The quiz is set by the tutor so it will differ for all tutorial groups because the tutors are different. For my tutorial group, we have 6 MCQ questions to complete within 20/25 minutes for each of the quizzes. So, for the tutorials on these weeks, there will be no tutorial presentation. Quiz 1 covered weeks 1 - 4 content, Quiz 2 covered weeks 5 - 8 content and Quiz 3 covered weeks 9 - 11 content.
For Finance MCQ questions (this also applies for mid terms and finals), they tend to be very tricky, regardless of whether they are mathematical questions or conceptual questions. There are times where after I calculated for an answer, my answer may not appear in one of the choices at all (Yeah, that's how bad it is). Usually I will try to recalculate and if I cannot get any of the choices, then I'll just guess the answer in the end.
The quiz questions were not as tough, as compared to the mid term and finals questions. So, I advice studying and revising the content well so that at least, you can score well and secure 10% of the grades. How the grading works for the quizzes is that the tutor will take only your best 2 quiz results. This means that you can choose to attend 2 quizzes and ignore the last one. But I'll still advice to try attending all quizzes since it serves as a form of practice for midterms and finals.
Tutorial Quizzes
There were a total of 3 tutorial quizzes, one on week 6, one on week 10 and the last one on week 13. The quiz is set by the tutor so it will differ for all tutorial groups because the tutors are different. For my tutorial group, we have 6 MCQ questions to complete within 20/25 minutes for each of the quizzes. So, for the tutorials on these weeks, there will be no tutorial presentation. Quiz 1 covered weeks 1 - 4 content, Quiz 2 covered weeks 5 - 8 content and Quiz 3 covered weeks 9 - 11 content.
For Finance MCQ questions (this also applies for mid terms and finals), they tend to be very tricky, regardless of whether they are mathematical questions or conceptual questions. There are times where after I calculated for an answer, my answer may not appear in one of the choices at all (Yeah, that's how bad it is). Usually I will try to recalculate and if I cannot get any of the choices, then I'll just guess the answer in the end.
The quiz questions were not as tough, as compared to the mid term and finals questions. So, I advice studying and revising the content well so that at least, you can score well and secure 10% of the grades. How the grading works for the quizzes is that the tutor will take only your best 2 quiz results. This means that you can choose to attend 2 quizzes and ignore the last one. But I'll still advice to try attending all quizzes since it serves as a form of practice for midterms and finals.
Mid Terms
Wow, midterms. The paper had 30 MCQ questions and I would say it is not easy. The mid terms took place on Week 7. A lot of calculation is involved and careless mistakes can easily be made. Be very very careful when reading the questions as one word in the question can change the answer entirely.
The lecturer does upload past year mid term questions for us to refer and practice. To me, this is really really good as it provided me with good exposure to finance type of questions. There were a total of about 10 - 11 past year papers to practice, so do try them out.
Final Exam
Final exams consisted of 40 MCQs and it was 2 hours long. The worse thing is that we can only bring in 1 A4 cheatsheet. My seniors could actually bring in 2 A4 cheatsheets, which is real good. Soooo, what I did was that I wrote my cheatsheet on 3 A4 pages, then combined them into 2 A4 pages using word. You can refer to my cheatsheet here. I am so sorry but my cheatsheet is actually very messy and I would recommend looking for other cheatsheets that are flying around the internet.
Most of the paper covered content from the second half of the semester. The first half of the paper was quite okay. The hard part was the second portion of the paper. It is the portion where I calculated an answer (capital budgeting portion) and my answer is not part of any of the options provided. I had to guess some of the questions in the end. But I would say 2 hours is enough to complete the 40 questions in the paper.
Wow, midterms. The paper had 30 MCQ questions and I would say it is not easy. The mid terms took place on Week 7. A lot of calculation is involved and careless mistakes can easily be made. Be very very careful when reading the questions as one word in the question can change the answer entirely.
The lecturer does upload past year mid term questions for us to refer and practice. To me, this is really really good as it provided me with good exposure to finance type of questions. There were a total of about 10 - 11 past year papers to practice, so do try them out.
Final Exam
Final exams consisted of 40 MCQs and it was 2 hours long. The worse thing is that we can only bring in 1 A4 cheatsheet. My seniors could actually bring in 2 A4 cheatsheets, which is real good. Soooo, what I did was that I wrote my cheatsheet on 3 A4 pages, then combined them into 2 A4 pages using word. You can refer to my cheatsheet here. I am so sorry but my cheatsheet is actually very messy and I would recommend looking for other cheatsheets that are flying around the internet.
Most of the paper covered content from the second half of the semester. The first half of the paper was quite okay. The hard part was the second portion of the paper. It is the portion where I calculated an answer (capital budgeting portion) and my answer is not part of any of the options provided. I had to guess some of the questions in the end. But I would say 2 hours is enough to complete the 40 questions in the paper.
Expected Grade: A
Final Grade: A
Final Comments
I would say that I gained a lot of insight with regards to financial markets in general after taking this module. I would recommend this module for those who want to really learn more about finance related terminologies. If you're planning to take this module just to get one more A, then I won't recommend you taking this module.
Stay tuned for more updates.
- Alan
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