Taken in AY 18/19 Semester 1
- 1.5 hours lectures (webcasted)
- 45 mins tutorial
Another one of the compulsory modules that you have to clear if you are planning to major in Economics. I would recommend taking this module instead of EC1101E if you are unsure of whether you are planning to major in Economics as this module gives you a better understanding of what you will be doing in higher level modules as opposed to exposure modules which tend to provide you with a narrow perception of what you will have to face in the future.
Assessment:
- Attendance 10%
- Participation 10%
- Group Project 5%
- Mid-terms 25%
- Finals 50%
If you look at the syllabus for this module, it may seem rather daunting at first as you will be covering things like multi-variable calculus and optimisation. But it isn’t that hard as most problems only require you to apply formulas to solve the questions. Furthermore, many of the topics covered are those that have already been taught in the A levels which include topics like functions, differentiation and integration.
Bad thing about this module is you will have to read the textbook if you want to get a thorough understanding of the concepts because the content in the lecture is just a summary of the main content. But the lecturer is AMAZING! He is able to explain difficult concepts with ease, which makes the mastery of concepts much easier for this module. So do watch the lectures if you have difficulty understanding some of the concepts, it saves you a lot of time rather than trying to understand it by yourself.
For the class participation component, there is no group discussion beforehand so you literally come in to class and present your answers for the tutorial. Do try to volunteer at every opportunity as it is not that hard to get the full marks for this module. You just have to go up to the board and write your answers and probably just talk a couple of lines at most and the tutor will give you credit for participation. As for the group project, you don’t really have to put in much effort because everyone gets the full 5% as long as you construct an optimisation question and present it to the class. It is group work by the way but it is possible for one person to just do the entire thing.
To score well in the midterms, you should attempt all the past mid-term papers that have been given out to you. Often the questions that come out in the papers are very similar to those that have been tested in previous years so it is possible to score above average if you understand the solutions of the past year papers. The mid-terms comprises of 15 MCQs which you will have to complete in 70 minutes. To be honest, it is quite manageable if you manage your time well because there are some questions which really test simple concepts like basic differentiation and integration. The most frustrating thing about this test was the inclusion of the ‘none of the above’ option in the MCQs, so it is not possible to know if you have made a careless mistake. The bell curve for this paper is also very high with a median of 10/15.
So finals was rather challenging as you have to complete 5 structured questions in 2 hours. The paper is set in such a way that there are easy questions so that people will do decently for the paper but there are some questions which are really tough (questions that you would have never gotten correct even if you practised all the past year papers). So if you aren’t someone who is very good at math, you need to ensure that you do not make any careless mistakes throughout the paper if you want to get a B+ for this paper which I felt was very demanding. One careless mistake and you are below average.
Overall, I feel that the workload for this module is very light. You only have several problems to do for your weekly tutorials which won’t take up too much for your time. It might take you some time if you are planning to read the textbook but most people don’t read the textbook anyway. They just go to the lecture and focus on the important stuff taught by the lecturer which should be sufficient for you to score well for this module. But there tends to be a disjuncture between the difficulty of the problems sets and that of those tested in the exams so don’t be too happy if you think that the tutorials are too easy because everyone else is probably feeling the same way too!
Expected Grade: B+
Actual Grade: A
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