FNCE10002: Principles of Finance

online assessment 10%, tutorial attendance and participation 10%, mid-semester test 20%, final examination 60% (with hurdle)

1. Lecture
The accent of the lecturer is strange - I have to acknowledge this fact at first. However, once you can focus on his expertise and professionalism, this will not be an issue anymore. The lecturer may not be such impassioned, but the lecture content is still intellectually abundant, and I really enjoy how dedicated Asjeet Lamba is when delivering the lectures. Each week's lecture slides should include roughly 60 pages with almost a quarter of them focusing on case studies. If you are not so eager to gain more finance knowledge (like me), you can definitely skip these cases since they are not examinable. On the other hand, if you want to broaden your horizon, try to listen to the lectures or the recordings carefully, otherwise it is hard to grasp the principles and theories underlying the cases. For the other knowledge, looking through the lecture slides may be enough, hence there is no need to listen to the lectures in great detail. The textbook is a good resource such that it gives a deeper explanation of some theories and calculations.

2. Tutorial
Cameron is the best tutor I have ever had, and I am looking forward to having him as my tutor for future subjects if possible. He can always focus on the main topics of each lecture but deviate from the lecturer's teaching style. For example, every week he would compile his own tutorial notes instead of following the lecturer's instruction on how to teach in the tutorial. His tutorial notes were highly condensed with every point focusing on HOW TO GET MORE MARKS. For all calculation-based questions, he would work out general formulas such that we can use directly to get the correct answer. For those theory-based questions, he would usually construct an answering structure guiding us how to explain the theories concisely but get the full marks. After reviewing his tutorial notes each week, the knowledge became quite straightforward, and overall POF is a very easy subject for me.

3. Assessments
The online assessment is very easy and almost every student can get a full mark. The questions were released a week before submission, and everyone would get exactly the same questions. In this case, we would have a week to work them out and compare our answers with others. As long as we are careful and do not forget to do it, how can we lose mark in this assessment?

Another generous mark comes from the tutorial assessment. What you need to do is going to the tutorial and submitting each week's pre-tutorial questions. So long as you have submitted enough of those questions, you can get a full mark! The quality of the work does not count, so literally you can just copy some stuff from the lecture slides and enjoy a full mark!

The mid-semester test is a bit tricky, and a large number of students do not perform well based on past experience. One thing you need to be careful with is the wording of the questions - the beginning year, ending year and amounts can be misleading and interfere with a correct calculation, and Asjeet likes to put redundant information into the questions to confuse us. Another thing relates to the formula sheet. Since there is a formula sheet for both the mid-semester and final exams, students may not be quite familiar with the formulas. Under the exam condition, some students struggle with which formula to use, since the formula's name is not provided and they have never looked at the formulas in detail (since they think they do not need to memorise). Students should also practise how to use the calculator efficiently, which can help them save a lot of time in the exam.
The final exam is fair enough with most questions focusing on calculations and a reasonable distribution of difficulty. Again, if you are familiar with the formula sheet and the operation of the calculator, you can easily get most calculations correct. The difficult point is with the MCQ part of the final exam, since many of the questions require a thorough understanding of the relevant theories. During the exam viewing session, I found that I had got five of those questions incorrect, since I did not review the theories at all. The sample exam papers are generally not useful, since the questions do not resemble the real exam questions, thus do not think you can perform well in the exam if you can get all sample questions correct.

Yes, and its usefulness may depend on different persons.

Asjeet Lamba

There are two sample exams but not quite helpful in indicating what will be expected in the exam.

4.5/5.0

The required textbook is highly recommended since most students have no finance background and the book makes the topics more understandable.

1 × 2 hour lecture, 1 × 1 hour tutorial

2019 Semester 1

93

10% - Individual homework assignment / test. It was basically 14 multiple choice questions we could do in our own time, and later submit online.
10% - Weekly tutorial participation. Tutorial questions were due each week, you needed to make a reasonable attempt on at least 8 out of 10 in order to get the full 10% (don't have to get them right)
20% - 1 hour mid-semester exam, mid-semester (20%)60% - 2 hour end-of-semester exam

This subject was good overall. It was a very common breadth, especially for the science students (like me). It didn't assume any knowledge and was an interesting and useful breadth

Lectures:
There was a 2 hour lecture every week. The first hour was good, there was a short 5 minute break halfway through (not long enough) and then the second hour commenced. The second hour was often confusing as you were often tired and had only just learned the relevant content without enough time to go over it or understand it. Asjeet was a good lecturer, and showed us relevant (and interesting) examples of actual companies and how their share value changed, etc. He did sometimes go through the content a bit fast, but this was likely due to the time constraints and the fact that the second lecture was immediately after the first. I believe if the lecture times were further apart, it would have been a good pace.
The lecture slides were well organised, with a summary at the end and the relevant formulas (both really useful). The examples / case studies had "Case study 1: Name" written at the top of the slide, and the content had titles at the top of slides, making it easy to go through notes. The lectures were good but could have been improved by being further apart. I know lots of people stopped attending partway through semester, and this could be a good solution so that you can have a break between the lectures, but make sure you don't fall behind.

Tutorials:
My tutorial wasn't the best, although I'm sure other tutors were far better. We got into groups of 3-4 at the start to talk about one of the true/false questions for about 10min. The rest was our tutor solving the questions, sometimes trying to get an answer from us. He wasn't very engaging and I didn't learn much from the tutes, which contributed to how I found it difficult to understand some concepts, having to spend time going over concepts right before exams (I didn't have much time during the semester).

The Online Assignment:
The online assignment worth 10% was basically a take home MC test. If you put in the extra time to check your work, it was easy-ish to full-mark, just make sure you submit it on time! It covered content from weeks 1-4 and was fairly straightforward.

The Mid Semester Exam:
This covered weeks 1-5 of the subject, and was worth 20%. It had 14 multiple choice questions and was done in an hour. Most of the questions were straightforward but a couple relied on you remembering what they talked about in lectures, not necessarily just the application of formulas etc (one question in particular). If you study it should be pretty easy to do reasonably well. The time is more than enough to do most questions, with the extra time for those questions where you're struggling to get the answer out.

Final Exam:
This is a hurdle and worth 60% of your final mark. The questions often tested multiple concepts at once (eg finding a NPV of something where you're given the nominal cost, inflation rate and required rate of return or WACC). One question (10 out of 100 marks) required you to remember a graph and the names of the labels etc which I think everyone struggled with which is why they increased the exam mark by 6 marks. The multiple choice section is easy / straightforward, but to do well in the SA section you need to know the content quite well, as not knowing all aspects will cause great difficulty as most questions assess multiple things at once. There was enough time to do the exam, and it was pretty fair.

Overall
Overall this subject was a good introduction to finance. The time commitment wasn't very large (something I was grateful for) but did require time outside of lectures and tutes to understand concepts and complete the relevant tutorial questions. The 4 instead of 5 /5 was due to the long lectures and difficulty absorbing so much information at once, and the not-so-great tutes. The rest of this subject was, however, interesting and useful. I would recommend doing this subject, especially if you want to learn something practical and that you can apply to regular (financial) life.

Yes, with screen capture

Asjeet Lamba

No, 2 sample exams were provided

4 Out of 5

"Required text"
Berk, J. and DeMarzo, P., Corporate Finance: The Core, 4th ed., Pearson Global Edition, 2017.
I bought it but rarely used it. There are pre readings but the lectures are usually enough to get by

1x 2 hour lecture
1x 1 hour tutorial

2017 Semester 1

High H1

Tutorial participation (10%), Assignment (10%), 1 hour Mid-semester exam (20%), 2 hour end of semester hurdle exam (60%)

Overall: This subject, along with ARA and micro, was a great introduction to commerce for your typical maths/science high school student. I really enjoyed the maths in this subject, as well as the introduction to the stock market. It can get tricky at times, but it’s not an overly hard subject and if you put the effort in good grades are very achievable. The only reason I gave it 4.5 instead of 5 was because sometimes there were exam questions requiring you to remember diagrams/graphs in lectures, however you could usually alternatively figure it out with some understanding.

Textbook: I would only recommend Corporate Finance: The Core, although you can honestly probably get by without it. The reading gets a bit much every week, and I personally didn’t understand a lot straight away. However, doing the pre-reading can help you get a preview before lectures, and can complement your understanding.

Lectures: Not everything will make sense straight away, but lectures definitely aid your understanding. Asjeet goes through the theory with exams, as well as case studies, showing you how it’s applicable to real life. I’d recommend attending, or watching at home, whichever works best for you.

Tutorials/Tutorial participation: The participation mark for this subject is IMO a lot more objective than others. You need to attempt some questions, and hand it in to your tutor, and you need to hand in 8/10 for full marks – should pretty much be a guaranteed 10% if you’re trying. It doesn’t matter if you make mistakes, as long as your tutor thinks it’s an attempt – even if you’re not understanding yet you can just sub some values into a formula and still get full participation marks Tutorials involve you discussing questions you’ve been given the week before to work on, and your tutor then taking everyone through the answers. Answers uploaded to the LMS are minimal, so I’d recommend attending, and definitely stay on top of pre-tute work.

Assignment: Pretty much a take home multiple choice exam, but with easier questions. If you’ve got the basics, can easily be full marked (at least the semester I did this subject).

Exams: A formula sheet without descriptions is provided, however it is not just about plugging in numbers – you need to understand what the formula is doing, and well as theory behind the stock market, companies ect. The exams are quite a bit more difficult than the assignment, but once you put everything together it’s not too hard. Ultimately, this subject just requires consistent effort.

Yes, with screen capture

Asjeet Lamba (Lecture apparently changes for semester 2 though)

No, as it is a new subject. However, two sample exams with solutions were provided for both exams, and exam questions from similar subjects are put in tutorial work.

4.5 Out of 5

Berk, J. and DeMarzo, P., Corporate Finance: The Core, 4th ed is the main one you need. Principles of Corporate Finance, 12 th ed is optional, but not needed.

1×2 hour lecturer per week, 1×1 hour tutorial per week

2017, Semester 1

H1 (87)