(AY2019/2020, Sem 1) NUS EC3102 Macroeconomic Analysis II Review

Module Title: Macroeconomic Analysis II
Module Code: EC3102
Taken in AY2019/2020, Semester 1

Lecturer: Professor Zhang Jie
Tutor: Graduate student currently pursuing PhD

Components	Percentage	Grade	Marks
Tutorial Participation & Assignment	20%
Mid Term	30%		30/30
Final	50%

Final Grade: A+

What is it about?

     EC3102 is an extension of EC2102 and it uses the Life-Cycle Model to explore various macroeconomics issues. As the whole module revolves around the Life Cycle Model, it is crucial to understand the model well.

     Students are assessed through Tutorial Participation & weekly Assignments, a Mid-Term and a Final paper. For Tutorial Participation, it really depends on how your tutor go about grading you. For Mid-Term paper, it is literally a replication of the lecture notes and the problem sets. There is only 1 question with 3 parts of equal weightage (10 marks each). Part b essentially comes from tutorial 1 on maximisation of utility, part a comes from tutorial 2 on firms' profit maximisation and part c comes from tutorial 3 on the transition equation and output per worker growth rate. We were given 2 hours to complete the paper which is more than enough. Most students left at around the one-hour mark. The paper is easy as it's a replicate. It's definitely not hard to attain a high score, it's just a matter of whether one score full marks or not -- as I believe the quality of explanation is the ultimate influence / criteria. For Final paper, it is a 2-hour paper with 3 questions, and each question is sub-divided into few parts. The questions, unlike Mid-Term, are tough and most (or all) of the students only managed to do a few parts (not even a full question).

Review

    Honestly, I really enjoyed the content. I read through the textbook, notes and re-do my tutorials over and over again (till I'm absolutely sick of it). Every single time I re-do the paper, I gain some insights that I was previously unaware of. In addition, love the textbook that he uses for the module and I do recommend students to get it. There is no mid-term paper or final paper to practice on, sadly but as long as you put in effort in re-doing tutorials, it is not impossible to attain an A. His paper generally reward students who put in effort. I, myself, was not able to do the Final Paper and only did 3 parts which is about 25% of the paper, but I still managed to churn out an A+ through hard work. Further, he is known to give as many As as he could, so you may want to look out for him.

Ratings

4.47/5