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Rating

Total average

64.8/100
Learning Materials ( 69.3 )
Learning Activities ( 58.4 )
Blackboard Management ( 68.4 )
Course Content ( 52.4 )
Course Structure ( 60.2 )
Contact Availability ( 66.3 )
Course Difficulty ( 78.1 )

Reviews (15)

Anonymous
   
ECON1020 – Introductory Macroeconomics 32.1

I had Professor Ian King for this course and it has so far been the worst course I have taken at Uni over the past 3 years. The lectures are mind numbingly boring, over complicated and he made no attempts to link theory to real world examples or try and make it interesting for us. I did this course at the same time as doing two second year courses and a third year course and found myself using up far more time on this course than the others, doing my own research trying to understand concepts he hadn't explained competently. Despite this, I barely scraped through with a pass after all my hard work, and I know more than a couple of friends who failed this course even after putting in quite a lot of effort. Extremely frustrating and disappointing course... UQ really needs to find a more competent and enthusiastic course coordinator.

Semester taken

Semester 1 - 2017

Your program/major

BBusMan

Is lecture attendance necessary?

No

Is the textbook necessary?

No

Positives No positive points
Negatives No negative points
Posted on September 25, 2017 3:18 pm
Ian
   
ECON1020 – Introductory Macroeconomics 78.9

This course is extremely dry and would much prefer ECON1010 over this course.

A few parts of 1020 can be improved tenfold to make this course 10x better:
1) Reduce the number of CML quizzes. Gets really repetitive and you want to fall asleep after the 2nd one
2) More assignments. The lack of assignments literally killed me
3) Less weighting on the final exam to evenly distribute the marks across the 6 assessment pieces

On the upside though, the slides were set out really well so that was a positive.

Semester taken

Semester 2 - 2016

Your program/major

Bachelor of Arts

Is lecture attendance necessary?

Yes

Is the textbook necessary?

Somewhat

Positives
  • Lecture Slides
Negatives
  • Weighting of assessment pieces
  • Dry lecturer
Posted on April 18, 2017 12:34 pm
Anonymous
   
ECON1020 – Introductory Macroeconomics 57.0

This semester I had Bruce Littleboy. Really hated his lectures - he was super old and spoke extremely slowly and I consider this to be a cure to my insomnia. The final exam seemed really easy but was far from it (got 19/55). The few tutorial classes prior to the exam were a good indicator to what was going to be on the exam. The best way to pass the course was to do CMLs and focus on doing extremely well for the midsemester exam. Bruce was a bit stingy by omitting some slides that was discussed in lectures from lecture recordings and most often this related to exam questions. As a result his concept priority questions (which are on exams) are not on lecture slides and you must watch the entire lecture recording find the answers if you did not attend the relevant lecture. In retrospect, lecture attendance is really encouraged. From reading other reviews of this course, they are pretty accurate.

Semester taken

Semester 2 - 2016

Your program/major

Business Management

Is lecture attendance necessary?

Nope

Is the textbook necessary?

Nope

Positives
  • Nothing
Negatives
  • Heaps and heaps of maths randomly involved, some of which weren't on exam
  • Uninteresting lectures
Posted on December 3, 2016 1:23 pm
Anonymous
   
ECON1020 – Introductory Macroeconomics 65.7

ECON1020 is a fairly interesting course. It covers macroeconomic topics such as unemployment, monetary policy, and GDP. The (mid and final) exam questions were somewhat predictable. You will probably be given a mock exam to practise for the final.

Tips:
- Enroll and attend all of the PASS (Peer Assisted Study Sessions) and tutorials
- At least try to answer all of the tutorial questions before going to your tutorial
- The lecturer will probably drop a few hints on what will be on the exam, so listen carefully
Semester taken

Semester 1 - 2016

Your program/major

Commerce (Accounting)

Is lecture attendance necessary?

Yes (use the recordings to help with revision)

Is the textbook necessary?

No, but it can help clarify some concepts

Positives
  • Interesting content
  • No group assignments
Negatives
  • 30-35% Mid, 65-70% Final
Posted on August 15, 2016 5:06 pm
Anonymous
   
ECON1020 – Introductory Macroeconomics 78.9

This subject is very interesting and it helps you understanding basics of macroeconomics. However at the same time, passing the exam(mid+final) could be very difficult if you don't attend all the lectures and tutorials (PASS is not necessary but helps your understanding in the course) since the exam questions demand good understanding in the course. Lots of my friends and people failed the subject because they didn't prepare for the final (The RBA minute) Please be prepared for this course, this course is hard to pass (or at least get HD, D) without putting some effort in. Especially if you are thinking to take the subject in semester 2 (the lecturer is very nice and funny but exams are super harddd)
Semester taken

Semester 2 - 2015

Your program/major

B.Com

Is lecture attendance necessary?

Yes

Is the textbook necessary?

YES!

Positives
  • Provides good basic understanding of macro econ.
  • Interesting subject
Negatives
  • MID sem (despite being MCQ) hard
  • Final was even harder
Posted on May 30, 2016 11:44 pm
Anonymous
   
ECON1020 – Introductory Macroeconomics 70.0

Pretty boring course, content was easy to understand and Littleboy is a funny lecturer. He has no patience or tolerance for fools in his lecture room which was hilarious to listen to.

Very little of what was taught was interesting (to myself at least) but the exam was mostly pre-published and the lecturer tells you a lot of what was going to be directly examined, super useful.

Don't need to attend lectures, pass or tutorials. Just read the slides and I would recommend listening to the lectures if you don't attend as Littleboy (if you have him) likes to talk about a lot more than the slides show. He's semi-interesting and can listen to him at 2x speed without a worry.

Unfortunately you will need the textbook to do well. It's very well written and flows coherently.
Semester taken

Semester 2 - 2015

Your program/major

B Arts

Is lecture attendance necessary?

Not at all

Is the textbook necessary?

Yes 100%

Positives
  • Interesting lecturer
  • Easy assessment
Negatives
  • Textbook is 100% needed
Posted on April 5, 2016 11:30 am
Solomon Guy
   
ECON1020 – Introductory Macroeconomics 51.4

This course had potential to be really good but it has been structured very strangely. This course has very high fail rates so they are always messing with it. The biggest problem I found was that the exams are very much harder than any other content in the course. The tutorials ans PASS are very easy which is quite misleading. There are a lot of confusing concepts and terms which are not explained very clearly. The lecture slides are of low quality and are often very confusing. The lecturer is very reluctant to use maths in the course which makes simple concepts even more confusing. They should make math1050 or 1051 a prerequisite so we can stop qualitatively describing economics using complex terminology.

The topics are interesting and relevant. It's a shame that this course doesn't reach its potential.

The course overall needs more focus and clarity.

Semester taken

Semester 1 - 2015

Your program/major

Bsc/BBusMan

Is lecture attendance necessary?

Yes

Is the textbook necessary?

Yes

Positives
  • interesting topics
Negatives
  • exams harder than learning activities
  • dance around maths
  • lacks focus and clarity
Posted on November 7, 2015 4:39 pm
Charlotte
   
ECON1020 – Introductory Macroeconomics 68.6

Enjoyed this course much more than ECON1010 (microeconomics). The lecturer KK Tang I liked very much and used current real life examples which supplement the learning material. Definitely recommend attending lectures and tutorials, however, exam material isn't derived from PASS classes so unless you really struggle with economics, they aren't overly helpful. I highly recommend completing the tutorial submissions for the 7% bonus marks (as long as you have a decent go at the questions you'll get the marks, answers don't have to be right), as they not only give you additional percentages but they really help you learn the content. The textbook I found helpful to clarify anything I didn't understand, plus some exam MCQs came from the textbook which weren't taught in lectures or tutorials.
Semester taken

Semester 1 - 2015

Your program/major

BBus Man/Com

Is lecture attendance necessary?

Yes

Is the textbook necessary?

Yes

Positives No positive points
Negatives No negative points
Posted on June 30, 2015 7:56 pm
Crystal
   
ECON1020 – Introductory Macroeconomics 57.9

This course is very difficult. VERY. I failed 3 times because all 3 times the final exam was worth more than 65% of your final grade which is ridiculous. If you did Maths A in high school, please be aware that there is a high degree of assumed prior knowledge in terms of maths and graphing skills - this makes it hard to study as you need to learn the math first then learn the content. Assessment was weighted extremely highly in the final exam with tiny percentages awarded to painstakingly long tutorial activities (max 0.7% for 3 hours of writing).

On a good note though, the lectures and lecture slides were amazing - so well written, very informative and so so so so helpful when trying to study for the final exam. The lecturers (I had KK Tang, Bruce Littleboy and also Dr James Laurenceson in my times of doing it over and over again) were fantastic at explaining content , the only thing was that the course had sooooo much content to learn you just feel like you're always one step behind what they're teaching. Please, please, please do not miss a lecture because if you do, you'll fall behind so quickly its not funny. Same goes for the tutorials - just go to them - don't even contemplate skipping them cause you'll likely fail the course. Overall, horribly hard course, time consuming and ridiculously weighted assessment.

Hated all 3 semesters of my life when I was doing it.

Semester taken

Semester 1 - 2013

Your program/major

BBUS

Is lecture attendance necessary?

Yes, absolutely

Is the textbook necessary?

Yes, definitely

Positives
  • Lecture slides were amazing - so detailed
  • Lecturer is always on time, polite and well spoken
  • Lecturer monitors his emails all the time so he answers emails quickly
Negatives
  • High degree of prior maths knowledge assumed
  • A lot of content to learn- A LOT
  • Extremely high failure rate - failed it 3 times
Posted on June 14, 2015 10:07 pm
Brian
   
ECON1020 – Introductory Macroeconomics 69.6

Overall a good course that introduces the concepts in Macroeconomics, the quantitative side is kept relatively light and to the point. The course explores a variety of topics focusing in further studies within economics but students from other majors might also get a lot of value out of it. Dr. Bruce Littleboy is a good lecturer although sometimes was difficult to keep up with some concepts due to the density of the material, moreover reading the textbook is a must otherwise many concepts are left out.
Semester taken

Semester 2 - 2014

Your program/major

Bachelor of Economics

Is lecture attendance necessary?

No

Is the textbook necessary?

Absolutely

Positives
  • Engaging
  • Flexible weighting for assesmente
Negatives
  • Only two pieces of assesment
Posted on November 4, 2014 8:13 am
Anonymous
   
ECON1020 – Introductory Macroeconomics 23.0

Worst Macroeconomic course i've done.

Lecturer : KK Tang

> Poor course structure
> MCQs are heavily weighted which is bullsh**t! This is a macroeconomic course we are supposed to understand the big picture. Needs more short essays.
> Worst of all, most of these 'MCQs' were ambigous or the lecturer was trying to be too smart.
> Also he made us buy the new text book which was very expensive.
Semester taken

Semester 1 - 2014

Your program/major

Bachelor of Economics

Is lecture attendance necessary?

Yes

Is the textbook necessary?

Yes

Positives
  • None
Negatives
  • Poor course structure
  • MCQs highly weighted
  • Textbook too expensive and was compulsory
Posted on October 8, 2014 12:18 am
Anonymous
   
ECON1020 – Introductory Macroeconomics 94.2

The course was well structured and was very much real world based.

The lectures focused on the real world implications of the theory, which was very handy and made the content easier to understand and digest.

KK was very open and forward coming with media stories and the like, and encouraged contact through Blackboard and Email in which all queries were responded to very quickly.

The tutorial papers and cash rate forecasting exercise made for some very easy marks, however assisted in comprehending the content.

A great course and great lecturer.
Semester taken

Semester 1 - 2014

Your program/major

BEcon/ Ba

Positives
  • Active lecturer
  • Real world context
  • Well Structured
Negatives
  • Tutorials could get a bit boring
Posted on July 8, 2014 4:16 pm
Anonymous
   
ECON1020 – Introductory Macroeconomics 88.3

Semester 1 2014 used a new format for teaching of ECON1020.

KK (lecturer) decided to focus more on the practical implications when compared to Littleboy who prefers theory heavy content (Littleboy wrote the textbook). KK uses plenty of real life examples (Notably China!) which makes the content alot easier to understand and assists students when attempting questions.

The course had plenty of learning materials such as a textbook, lecture slides, tutorial, PASS and optional readings which relate to real life examples. The discussion board was actively patrolled by the Tutorial Coordinator (J, Adams) and KK.

The assessment is fairly decent however, KK decided that multiple choice should account for 80% total marks of the course which is a little disproportional when considering that multiple choice is not used actively in tutorial or PASS papers. Otherwise, the cash rate and tutorial paper activities allowed students to obtain easy marks throughout the course.
Semester taken

Semester 1 - 2014

Your program/major

Bachelor of Commerce (Accounting)

Positives
  • Use of real life examples
  • PASS sessions helpful
  • Lots of optional readings available
Negatives
  • 80% Marks - Multiple Choice
Posted on June 25, 2014 3:21 pm
Cody Yakimoff
   
ECON1020 – Introductory Macroeconomics 88.0

Good course, excellent, knowledgeable lecturer. Interesting work and lots of opportunity to extend yourself beyond what is required.
Semester taken

Semester 1 - 2014

Your program/major

BCOMM - Finance

Positives
  • Good lecturer
  • Interesting coursework
  • Well organised structure
Negatives No negative points
Posted on May 27, 2014 11:31 pm
Anonymous
   
ECON1020 – Introductory Macroeconomics 48.3

This course was hard to understand most of the time. Doing outside-of-university research I discovered a lot of the content was actually false.

The tutorials were frustrating because if you missed more than 2, you would miss out on the entire 20% mark.
Semester taken

Semester 2 - 2011

Your program/major

Bachelor of Arts

Positives No positive points
Negatives
  • Fallacious
Posted on February 27, 2014 9:18 pm

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