Questions about administrative stuff for Econ 340, Section 100, Winter 2015 Jan 21: Q: I am currently in your International Economics class and I had a question about what prior knowledge of economics was required for this class. On the LSA Course Guide and on Wolverine Access, only Econ101 is a required prerequisite and Econ102 an advisory prereq, not Econ102, while on your syllabus and website, Econ101 and 102 seem to be required. Could you please clarify this? A: I suppose I should change the syllabus to list Econ 102 as only strongly recommended. I've told other students that, if they've not had 102, then they'll probably be OK as long as they do some extra study when we touch on topics from Econ 102. There is only one lecture, Mar 16 International Macroeconomics, that uses the theoretical tools of Econ 102. Otherwise, as you've seen, we often refer to things like GDP and CPI, but those should be easy to pick up. Jan 13: Q: I was not able to attend the very first lecture, however during the second lecture I don't remember you specifying any readings for tomorrow Wednesday the 14th. I was wondering if there were any readings for tomorrow and also if there was a syllabus that you would be able to send me? I can't seem to find one on the ctools website. A: Please see the course website at; http://www-personal.umich.edu/~alandear/courses/340/340.html I include that link on the CTools site, so you should have been able to find it. The syllabus lists readings for every class. Jan 13: Q: I was doing the reading for Econ 340 January 14 and I could not seem to get the link to work. Is there another way I can access this reading? I copied the reading below. Mauldin, William, "Tea-Party Resistance Clouds Push for Major Trade Pacts," Wall Street Journal,, December 15, 2013. Online (Proquest) A: Yes, another student pointed this out, and I've loaded the paper to CTools. You can go there directly, or use the new link in the online syllabus. Jan 8: Q: What was the average grade for this course previous semesters? Do you plan on having any curves to our final grade? Or is our grading system always an absolute scale? A: I gather that you missed class yesterday and haven't look at the course website. You should. I do grade on a curve, and you can see details of grades in the past at: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~alandear/courses/340/curve.html Jan 7: Q: 1. Are the "readings" and assigned news articles the same thing? Or are they separate assignments? A: They are different. The readings are the ones that are already listed in the syllabus. The assigned news articles will be selected each week and will be listed on the page linked to "Assigned" next to "News" on the course website. Q: 2.Are the dates listed on the syllabus the days the readings are due or when they are assigned? A: The dates are when I will lecture on the topic that relates to the readings, and therefore you should have read them before that date.