Semester 2 Mid-term exam, 2024
ECON3210 Financial markets and institutions
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School of Economics
Mid-term exam, Semester 2 2024
ECON3210 Financial Markets and Institutions
The mid-term exam is an open book, unsupervised, timed Blackboard test available in
Blackboard under Assessment in the folder Mid-term exam. Its structure is identical to the
take home assignment. An important difference, however, is that it takes place at the same
time for all students on Monday 16th September 2024 18:00 and has a limited duration of
115 minutes (just under 2 hours) that includes 10mn planning during which you are
allowed to write, 90mn working, and 15mn preparing the pdf files, one for each question that
requires one, and upload them on the Blackboard test. Please strengthen your
understanding of the expected standards by reviewing in detail the feedback you
received for your Take Home Assignment, as well as the model answers and marking
guides attached at the end of each THA question.
The link will become available on Monday 16th September 2024 18:00 and the submission
time is same day 19:55. You will need to submit yourself (no automatic submission)
Be aware that rigorous and demanding marking standards apply. To get full mark, the
answer must define concepts, show all the steps of calculation, provide precise and
consistent explanations, be well written and well presented.
Topics to revise:
Topic 3 Funding of the economy through direct finance, financial intermediation and net
creation of private money
Topic 4 Auctions in the government bond market and asset-backed securities
Topic 5 Security lending and short selling; regulation of short selling
Topic 6 Managed funds: traditional managed funds, hedge funds, ETF and mfunds
Aim high! Be ambitious!
You can excel in this course if you make a good use of the resources. Enjoy
the satisfaction that comes with learning a subject in a deep and meaningful
way.
Remember that I write reference letters for students who reach 7. ☺
Good work.
Frédérique
Semester 2 Mid-term exam, 2024
ECON3210 Financial markets and institutions
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Exam Conditions:
It is a timed exam but there is no timer for this test but you need to submit it yourself by
19:55. Because there is no automatic submission, you will be able to wait for your files to
be fully uploaded before you submit. However, late submission penalties will apply. DO NOT
FORGET TO PRESS SUBMIT!
It is an open book unsupervised assignment. It is an individual assessment. Collaboration
is NOT permitted.
The files to upload require hand-written answers; all diagrams, balance sheet and/or
equations as well as your full name and student number at the top of the answer absolutely
need to be hand-written. You are allowed to type the part of the answers that is only text.
Scan your exam answers for a given question, merge them if there are more than one page
for the answer and upload them as one pdf document per question. Sending files by
email is NOT permitted.
Materials you need:
✓ Several sheets of paper, if possible without lines, to write your official answer.
✓ Rough paper to draft your answers before you copy it on the actual paper you will
upload
✓ A black pen and possibly blue and red pens for your flow of fund diagrams (avoid
using pencil on your official answer as not easy to read)
✓ A calculator.
✓ A device to take picture of your hand written answers and convert them into a pdf file.
You can also include your pictures into a word document and convert it to a pdf file.
If you do not have access to a flatbed scanner, you can use a phone app such as “Adobe
Scan” or “Microsoft Office Lens”.
You can also answer with an ipad and create a pdf directly from the ipad.
Resources to study:
All resources available on the course Bb and UQ Extend platform (self study, tutorial,
workshop and further training) and in the assessment folder (revision online quiz on topic 3
and 4 and revision quiz on topic 5 and 6). It is not recommended to use external resources
that have not been validated by the course coordinator as they may be conflicting the
approach we take in the course.
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ECON3210 Financial markets and institutions
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Weight in the final mark:
The mid-term exam is 35% of the final mark.
Structure of the assignment:
The mid-term exam content is worth 35 marks.
Part A 10 marks. Answer 10 Multiple Choice Answer Questions
Part B 18 marks. Solve 2 problems B1 and B2.
Upload a pdf file of your hand-written answers for each
Part C 7 marks. Answer 2 questions. C1 is a true-false-unclear statement to justify in details;
C2 is a critical thinking question, on an unseen context, often supported by an article.
See the expectations and the marking standards at the end of the document.
Late submission and Deferred exam:
The following penalties apply If you submit after 19:55:
• Less than 5 minutes, 5%.
• From 5 minutes to less than 15 minutes, 20%.
• More than 15 minutes, 100%.
There is a deferred exam on Tuesday 1st October 2024 from 18:00-19:55. Remember that
personal statements of circumstance are not any longer accepted.
Requests for deferred exam must be done on My-Sinet.
Other penalties:
Entirely typed uploaded answers will be disregarded and will get 0 mark on the ground that
the marker cannot check authorship.
Please do NOT upload word document or pictures format. A penalty of 2 marks will apply
for each file that has not a pdf format.
If files are missing or if they are the wrong ones when you submit then you will get 0 mark
for the question. Files sent by emails will be ignored. Submit late rather than sending files
by email.
You will lose marks for some good parts of your answer if other parts of the answer
contradict or are inconsistent with your good explanations and/or give evidence that you
had actually not understood the question.
Misconduct procedures will take place and penalties decided by the Integrity team will
apply if you are caught collaborating with others, regardless of whether you are the
student helping someone else or the student receiving help. It is also inacceptable to use
Semester 2 Mid-term exam, 2024
ECON3210 Financial markets and institutions
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companies that sell answers. Googling the questions or using AI is not permitted; your
answers are expected to reflect the contents of the course not the contents resulting from a
google search or ChatGPT request.
Technical issues:
It is your responsibility to take the assignment in a location where the Internet is stable
(check regularly that you are still connected) and have a plan B available if your Internet fails
(like having arranged with a neighbour to use their internet in case of emergency). If you
have any doubt, go to UQ campus for instance; provided you have not submitted you will be
able to reconnect to your test.
If the system does not want to save your answers, (you receive a message of error that it
does not save) you need to shut down completely your computer (DO NOT SUBMIT THE
TEST YET) and reconnect to your test that will still be running. After checking that all the
answers are saved and that the files are uploaded, you can use the remaining time, if any
left, to check your Mcq and your answers located in answer boxes. It is highly recommended
that during the last 15 minutes of the test you do NOT touch the files uploaded.
For technical help contact AskUs preferably by chat. https://web.library.uq.edu.au/contact- us
Expectations and marking standards:
PART A
Each question is worth 1marks. (10 Marks Total)
10 MCQ, covering topic 3 to 6
Same nature and level of difficulty as questions in practice online tests.
Only one answer is correct. Choose the answer that is correct in most cases. Disregard
answers that would be true only under very specific circumstances that were not specified in
the question.
Be aware of the occasional presence of NOT correct in the question! If you find more than
one correct answer, check if you have not overlooked a NOT correct in the question.
PART B
Answer each question in a separate paper that you upload as pdf, as indicated for each
question. Marks are as indicated. (18 Marks Total)
2 problems covering topics 3 to 6 (B1 and B2)
Questions have several subquestions and can mix up topics.
Same nature and level of difficulty as problems seen in tutorials and workshops.
Semester 2 Mid-term exam, 2024
ECON3210 Financial markets and institutions
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The questions are different from the ones in the tutorials. Be careful not to be too
mechanical in answering the exercises. Personal abbreviations that were not used in the
learning resources are not accepted.
You are expected to define the concepts you use, provide formula before plugging
numbers, show the details and ALL steps of your calculations, make explicit the
reasoning you follow and interpret your result. Make sure that the interpretations are
not simply a repetition of the result. This is part of good writing standards and
evidence of a deep level of understanding as opposed to mechanical study.
If you are afraid to be short of time or to be short of energy (more likely in a no-timer
assessment), write short answers first and leave some space to add definitions, explanations
and interpretations later when you have some time/energy left.
Warning: consistency with previous mistakes will not always be rewarded (especially if they
take you back too close to existing model answers of problems in UQ Extend).
PART C
Answer questions in separate paper to upload as pdf file, as indicated. Marks are as
indicated. (7 Marks Total)
This part of the exam puts a strong emphasis on critical thinking, ability to apply knowledge to
new contexts, the depth of understanding and quality of writing.
Your answer must be well presented, with logical links between sentences. Messy
answers and argumentation with parts presented in a wrong order or repetitive will be
penalised. Be precise. Define the key concepts involved in the question. Vague
explanations will not gain full mark. Refrain from writing on aspects not relevant to the
question. Off topic components are evidence that the question was not fully
understood and therefore will be penalised. You may not get marks for some good
explanations if other parts of the answer contradict them and/or give evidence that you
had actually not understood at all the key concepts. Therefore, do not gamble: only
write information that you are convinced is correct. You should avoid google or other
search engine as well as AI it is likely that the information you will find will not be
precise enough for the course and/or fall in the trap of the misconception that the
course precisely tries to debunk. Copying/paste slides contents is not acceptable as
this does not give evidence that you have understood the content. Refrain using
contents from your other courses as markers will look for answers reflecting
exclusively what has been covered in this course.
1 question (C1) to discuss 1 statement covering topics 3 to 6. (2 marks)
You need to conclude whether a statement is true (always correct with no further
condition/restriction) false (always incorrect given the case provided) or unclear (could be
correct under certain circumstances to be defined and incorrect under other circumstances to
be defined).
You then need to justify your answer in four to six explanatory sentences. Without an
explanation or with a completely unrelated explanation you will get 0 marks even if your
conclusion true false or unclear was correct. Be careful that unclear means that if it true in
Semester 2 Mid-term exam, 2024
ECON3210 Financial markets and institutions
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some circumstances that need to be defined in your answer and false in other circumstances
that also need to be defined in your answer; one cannot get marks for unclear by simply
saying that the question was incomplete or badly written!
1 question (C2) of critical thinking not covered in the learning resources related to
topics 3 to 6. (5 marks)
The question applies the concepts studied in the course in an unseen context. It could take
the form of interpreting and commenting an extract from an article or some new data.
Part C is really the discriminatory part of the exam (with the explanations and
interpretations given in B too) therefore students aiming for a 7 need to perform well on this
part. It is easier to secure marks in Part A and B than in Part C.
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