ECON10003: Introductory Macroeconomics

2x written assignments (each worth 10%)
2x MCQ (5% each)
1x exam (60% of final) Note that this is a hurdle, 50% on the exam is required to pass.
The remaining 10% comes from tutorial participation, i.e. this was literally free since they waived this for sem 2 2020.

Back to the actual course, the MCQs were quite easy as long as you kept up to date with content. I think the first quiz was in week 4, and the second in week 10. The assignments were also quite easy; with Lawrence admitting that the averages for the assignments being a lot higher than expected. These assignments were done in groups of 1 to 3 - i.e. you can solo these assignments. If you were to work in a group (which I did for both), then you had to choose your group-mates from your own tutorial. I actually became pretty good friends with my two group-mates and it made the assignments a lot easier, since you can just delegate work to others whilst also discussing your own work with others. Since the assignments were easy, I don't think people doing the assignments solo had any real disadvantage.

This subject is a core subject for the B-COM, and a core within anyone majoring/minoring in economics, meaning this is one of the most popular subjects in first year. A pass in Introductory Microeconomics (ECON10004) is required to enroll in this subject.

As a second semester BCOM student, I initially didn't think much about this subject since at the time I was planning on majoring on actuarial studies (ACTL10001 review soon?!!), and really only did it since it's a core subject for BCOM. However, as soon as I watched the first lecture, I felt like I had to major in economics! Lawrence is easily the best lecturer I've had (in a small sample size lol) so far within the uni and I actually doubt anyone will top him for me. There are many reasons why I enjoy his style of teaching, but perhaps the best part of Lawrence is his tone and demeanour - I really found it relaxing and kept myself grounded during these turbulent times. There were some caveats with his teaching - he did not have many examples on slides, relying on Nahid's review sessions and the tutorial sheets to do that for him. He was receptive to feedback, so there were more examples in the second-half of the course. I also knew some students who found his voice annoying...I digress.

As noted I will more than likely major in economics now as a result of this subject. I really enjoyed this subject and definitely would recommend this as a breadth if you've done intro micro. If you're doing this as a core, I hope you have Lawrence and Nahid (I think they only teach sem 2) and I'm sure you'll have a blast! Or not, since you know, this is a core subject for all BCOM students regardless of your major. Thanks for reading

Coursework wise, if you did VCE Economics or equivalent, then you'll recognise a lot of the content in this subject, specifically AD/AS curves and its properties, Keynesian and Classical economics (even though we weren't told it explicitly back then ) and balance of payments. If you didn't, then don't worry since everything was accessible if you did intro micro. Difficulty wise, I found it easier than micro (I guess represented by my marks) especially if you enjoy real-life applications of economics. We examined a lot of the effects of COVID-19 and other great economic events (Great Depression, GFC) with respect to the theory we learnt, so I found that very cool!

The exam was alright, being 25 MCQ (usually 20) and 8 short-answer questions. There were no diagrams on this exam as noted by Lawrence as drawing diagrams would be time-costly on this online exam, so there were some weird and wacky questions but overall I felt good about it and I'm pretty happy with my mark.

Yes, with screen capture. More importantly, the lectures

Lawrence Uren and Nahid Khan. Lawrence presented all the lectures, and Nahid ran the fortnightly review sessions to provide students with additional questions.

Yes, around 4-5 past exams.

4.5 Out of 5

Feel free to obtain a copy of the book, but it isn't needed other than for further understanding of the content. The lecture slides + tutorials do more than enough.

I didn't go to many tutorials, but my tutor was quite nice and always made sure that you understood the content well. I highly recommend going to the first few weeks of tutes, then to leave since having a good relationship with a good tutor helps a lot in the long run.

2x 1 hr lectures, 1x 1 hr tutorial per week

2020 Semester 2 - note this was delivered fully online owing from COVID-19 restrictions.

H2A !

- 2 x multiple choice tests [5% each]
- 2 x group assignments [10% each]
- Final Exam [60%]
- Tutorial Participation [10%]

Introductory Macroeconomics is compulsory for all Bachelor of Commerce and Bachelor of Arts (Economics) students, so if you are reading this, chances are you don’t have much of a choice with picking this subject. If you are looking for a breadth subject, please note that Intro Macro has ECON10004 Introductory Microeconomics as a prerequisite.

Yes, with screen capture.

Lawrence Uren, Nahid Khan

There's about 20 past exams on the library website. Only the 2016, 2017, and 2018 exams are relevant to the current course (as of 2019 semester 2) and they are the only ones which also have answers.

2 Out of 5

Principles of Macroeconomics by Ben Bernanke, Nilss Olekalns and Robert Frank.
Both 4th and 5th edition are fine for this unit.

- 2 x 1 hour lectures per week
- 1 x 1 hour tutorial per week

2019 Semester 2

Pass (53)

Tutorial Participation 10%
Online Quizzes 2 × 5%
Group Assignments 2 × 10%
End of semester exam (2hrs) 60%

Quite a few people said that this subject was harder than its predecessor ECON10004, so I was a little worried due to finding the micro exam very difficult. However, I personally thought that the content difficultly was comparable, and actually found taking this subject to be a more pleasant experience, due to the use of lecture capture and not being terrified by the end of semester exam.
Major topics/concepts are the GDP, inflation/real interest rates, labour market/unemployment, Keynesian models of GDP, fiscal and monetary policy, AD/AS curve models of output and inflation, growth/Solow-Swan model, international trade, exchange rate and accounts.
Ultimately, it was an enjoyable subject, that felt more relevant to real life than micro. As Lawrence pointed out, most of the concepts are relatively straightforward, hence with a consistent effort to kept on top, good grades in this subject are easily achievable.

Lectures:
Unlike in micro, the lecture capture recorded everything, so it wasn’t a problem if you missed a lecture, and the capture could be effectively used for revision. I had Lawrence, and found him excellent – he explained and illustrated things really well and seemed genuinely interested in the subject. While I can’t really talk about Nahid as I didn’t attend or watch her lectures, I’d say based on what everyone said, Lawrence was the clear favourite.

Tutorials:
Pretty similar to micro in that you’d attempt a pre-tute sheet before class (which you’d later get solutions for), then attempt and discuss another sheet in the tute, which your tutor will take everyone through. Personally, I found some questions to be a lot more helpful than others. While I don’t know my participation mark, I’d say as long as you attend most classes and contribute something you should be pretty much guaranteed that 10%.

Assignments:
Could be done individually, or in groups up to 3 within your tutorial class. They pretty much tested the very basics, and most people scored very highly on them. They were also a lot shorter than the micro ones, despite being worth the same amount.
Quizzes:
Again, tested mainly the basic concepts, and should be fine if you’re on top of everything. I personally didn’t do too well on the second as I skipped over some of the earlier stuff when reviewing for it.

The median score for assignments and quizzes was over 80%, so apparently there was some scaling of final results.

Exam:
Due to the exam hurdle, exam literally just tested the basics. While it was good not to be stressed by an overly difficult exam, I felt it needed at least some challenge questions so that one could pass if they knew the basics, but nothing had to be scaled down due to high assignment scores.

Yes, with screen capture

Lawrence Uren (9am, 11am) and Nahid Khan (2:15pm, 4:15pm)

Yes, 2 with solutions

4 Out of 5

Principles of Macroeconomics, 4th edition, Bernanke, Frank & Olekalns - provided a good overview but I think lecture slides would have sufficed

2 × 1hr lectures per week
1 × 1hr tutorial per week

2017, Semester 2

H1 (83)

Macroeconomics is a bit of a mixed bag. For those equipped with VCE economics, there are many familiar economic issues such as exchange rates, inflation and unemployment which are tackled from scratch in intro macro. However, gone are the days of lengthy paragraphs where you're allowed to demonstrate appreciation for theory. Instead, you're greeted with graph after graph, which I guess acts as the best prelude and introduction to university economics: the application of economic models.

There is a fair bit of ground that is covered in the 12 weeks, more so than your intro micro counterparts from semester 1. I'd say the material is 'harder' to learn, there is a bit more 'devotion' required in scoring well. Graham is a knowledgeable lecturer, but has a bit of a temper, which became known to me in a lecture recording where he starts raging at the front row for not shutting up lol. He's a tad on the racist side as well, often dropping a witty comment about the prevalence of international students in the theatre, or playing some chinese pop before lectures.

Graham's lecture slides are long, and I mean, 50 slides for 50 minutes long. Redundant slides that could've been omitted were strikingly prevalent. So don't completely read into every single one of his slides as gospel, there is A LOT that isn't covered during the exam (weeks!) which is used up as build-up for a major topic (eg. sector model). The entire 24 lectures are plenty enough to warrant their own textbook, so you'll be fine if you pass on the textbook, but don't forget to SKIM THE SLIDES, or else you're just wasting your time.

Tutorials were okay, but following the trend of intro micro, pink sheets still reign supreme over blue sheets by quite the margin, in terms of their usefulness for exam revision.

A tip for the lazy, get your shit together before the mid-point of the semester. The concepts start to progressively pile up on each other, and implied knowledge from previous weeks and lectures will be your downfall if you slack off. I learnt this the hard way, and my mark suffered quite a bit because of this. Even if you just have a skim through the lecture slides and have half an eye open during tutes, it's a lot better than having a naked slate into swotvac. Macro is probably the hardest subject to catch up on if you're flying solo, but also one of the easiest, given you put even the slightest bit of weekly work into it.

The exam is very, very recycled, and make sure you get a hold of them asap, and study the solutions religiously. Questions are marked quite harshly, every single step is scrutinised, so if you have the answering technique that mimics the solutions, you'll be set for high marks.
Macro doesn't quite live up to its expectations, set by its micro brother in semester 1 and effectively turned me off for pursuing an economics major. But that's not really the subject's fault, it really isn't too bad if you have your way with graphs and the practical side of things.

Graham Richards

3.5/5

Principles of Macroeconomics, Bernanke, Olekalns. I didn't buy this textbook throughout the semester, but from what I've heard, it's supposed to complement the lengthy lecture slides well.

2013 S2

2 x 10% Assignments; 2 x 5% MCQ online tests; 1 x 60% Exam; 10% Participation

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with this subject. I really enjoyed micro last semester so I came into this semester with pretty high expectations and they weren't quite met. If you get Graham Richards as a lecturer, he does take some getting used to. You may find the lecture slides to be a bit long winded and at times I personally found some explanations to be a bit too convoluted, so to combat this I recommend writing notes on each lecture just to see how the concepts interact and how he's tried to build up his explanation. I also found that the explanations of the concepts at the beginning of tutorials really helped in the understanding of what is conveyed in lectures. The concepts may seem a bit disjointed, but I found that while writing up summary notes for all the lectures during swotvac helps you to realise how they all link together.

Now onto assessments: we were given a set of practice questions for our first multichoice test and they do give an accurate indication of the difficulty to expect on the actual test. I didn't do too well on the 2nd online test, but if you know your concepts well enough, getting full marks is very achievable. With the assignments, you want to make sure you're extremely thorough with your explanations, you pretty much have to state exactly how you reached your conclusions and which concepts you've drawn from. Anything that you may consider to be relevant you should put in. It's very possible to get near full marks if not full marks on these assignments.

The exam was very similar to the past exams, Graham has a very distinct style in his exam writing. Make sure you are pedantic in your understanding of why the concepts are structured the way they are (eg. what/who supplies in the forex market and why is it sloped in that way) and you need to be extremely verbose in your explanations, much like Graham is in his lectures.
Overall I found intro macro to be really interesting and tutes were great - I had a fantastic tutor; however the lectures did leave something to be desired and because of this there were times I wasn't quite happy with the subject

Yes, with screen capture

Graham Richards

3 were provided with solutions

4 Out of 5

There was one - didn't use it

2 x 1 hour lectures; 1 x 1 hour tutorial

2013 Semester 2

H1