How to deal with lecturers that cannot accept that they are wrong? (1 Viewer)

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I had a FINS1612 multiple choice quiz and one of the question was not fully specified. The question was about dividend imputation and it involved the following data:

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Company profit: $2 350 000
Shareholder's Marginal Tax Rate: 43%
Company Tax Rate: 37%
All profits are paided out as dividends.

Calculate the tax payable by all shareholders (as an aggregate amount) on a fully franked dividend (assuming all shareholders have the same tax rate ).

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I assumed (like anyone would) that the profit figure given was after tax. All of the answer options on the quiz paper relied on it being a before tax figure.
Everyone knows that before tax profits are always explicitly specified. Therefore, it must have been after tax. Also, dividends are paid out of after tax profits.

I emailed the lecturer about it and he just continues to deny that he was at fault. He even said " I am not sure where you derive your belief that profit always refers to after tax income – that is certainly not an assumption that I presented in class." Everyone knows that before tax profits are always explicitly specified. Therefore, it must have been after tax. Also, dividends are paid out of after tax profits.

This guy just keeps making up crap and will not accept that he is wrong. Seriously, what does he have to lose? Why do lecturers have to be so unreasonable? I am not doing it to get him into trouble, I just want my mark.

How do you deal with lecturers like this? He will not accept that he is wrong, and I lose because of it. On top of all that, he just started to be a smartass with me after I sent the third email or so and replied : "Thank-you for your very long and interesting email" Yeah, no sarcasm in that.



He keeps dancing around the fact that the question was worded incorrectly and his main argument is “the fact that your suggested answer was significantly different from any of the listed options should have suggested that you were on the wrong track” , that I should have known better and corrected his error for him!

 
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maratyeu

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Its like what 1-2 marks? Just move on and let him be.

You can't win against the Ivory Tower
 
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Its like what 1-2 marks? Just move on and let him be.

You can't win against the Ivory Tower
It's the principle damn it! Also, just giving up the marks because they are small is not a valid argument. If you gave up 3 marks in every single class it will eventually start adding up to something reasonably significant over the course of a degree. If you gave up 3 marks in every class it would effectively decrease your WAM by 3 marks. That is fairly significant. Also it's not fair if they are going to be giving awards to the people that top the class etc.
 
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u mad brah?
call da police
call da ambulance
call da firebrigade
call da fbi
call da cia
call da marines
call da united nations security council
call every brother in the nation and say hallelujah! cause jesus christ the lord is coming to earth.
 

Shadowdude

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FINS1612

lol




Anyway, just rip him apart in the CATEI evaluation forms.
 
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u mad brah?
call da police
call da ambulance
call da firebrigade
call da fbi
call da cia
call da marines
call da united nations security council
call every brother in the nation and say hallelujah! cause jesus christ the lord is coming to earth.
Fail troll?

It's not even entertaining.
 
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well at least im not getting marked for it xD
either way ure not gna get ur mark.
dont cry
 

halapenyo

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mate cmon everyone knows that profit is done before tax. i remember doing this quiz. my tutor said only one person in the whole fins1612 cohort got it wrong. i guess we know who it was
 

maratyeu

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It's the principle damn it! Also, just giving up the marks because they are small is not a valid argument. If you gave up 3 marks in every single class it will eventually start adding up to something reasonably significant over the course of a degree. If you gave up 3 marks in every class it would effectively decrease your WAM by 3 marks. That is fairly significant. Also it's not fair if they are going to be giving awards to the people that top the class etc.
Given the facts you've presented. If the consensus that EBIT is explicitly stated then the other students should have also got it wrong. Then everyone will be moderated appropriately.

Life is never fair. An academic institution is not free from the bias of the real world. I would argue that these awards aren't necessarily given to the top performing students, as its highly likely half a dozen people sit on the same mark. It comes down to brown nosing and who you know.

And back to my original point, you can't ever win against the Ivory Tower.
 
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how many students get prizes? in core courses?
I don't know. tbh I don't think there are specific prizes for this course. But I know that some courses has a relatively small prize for the first in course. I know FINS1613 gives out like unsw bookshop giftcards of $200, $100 and $50 for the top three students in the course. I know that a few third year finance subjects give like $1000 to the first in course. Yes, I most likely will not get first in FINS1612, but it's the principle and I still want the mark.
 
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It is like FINS3635 Options, Futures and Risk Mgmt. I am fairly sure the first in course gets $1000. However, just imagine how much competition there is for that :|. You would literally need to 100% raw to get the cash. One tiny little slip and your chances are gone.
 

halapenyo

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It is like FINS3635 Options, Futures and Risk Mgmt. I am fairly sure the first in course gets $1000. However, just imagine how much competition there is for that :|. You would literally need to 100% raw to get the cash. One tiny little slip and your chances are gone.
yeah no point trying to get it when some international student will be studying 24/7 and will be impossible to beat.
 

williamwu123

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"I assumed (like anyone would) that the profit figure given was after tax." - I have never heard of this; usually, people would assume that profit means before tax. Especially when the tax is given. What did you think the tax was there for?
Further, if it was a multiple choice, all the answers relied it being before tax and I used the after tax profit, I would hopefully have the intellectual capacity to realize that I did something wrong because all the answers would be off. Why the hell would you just put a random answer down?
 
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"I assumed (like anyone would) that the profit figure given was after tax." - I have never heard of this; usually, people would assume that profit means before tax. Especially when the tax is given. What did you think the tax was there for?
Further, if it was a multiple choice, all the answers relied it being before tax and I used the after tax profit, I would hopefully have the intellectual capacity to realize that I did something wrong because all the answers would be off. Why the hell would you just put a random answer down?
Son, profit is always after tax unless specified otherwise. When you hear on the news or read in the newspaper "Company X made a profit of $Y billion" I am fairly sure it is an after tax figure. Also, the question said "all profits are paided out as dividends" and dividends are paid out of after tax profits.

Also, I easily eliminated it down to two options out of four options. Two of the options were tax credits, and the other two were tax payable. Since shareholders tax was greater than company, it was obviously going to be one of the payables. I had a 50% chance of guessing correctly, and it didn't work out for me.

I had literally 60 seconds per question. It took me 10 seconds to read the question, 30 seconds to calculate my answer, another 10-15 to recalculate the answer (to make sure it wasn't a calculator error that wasn't giving me the correct answer) and then I just eliminated it down to two choices and guessed. There wasn't anytime to screw around.
 
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FINS1612

lol




Anyway, just rip him apart in the CATEI evaluation forms.
The evaluation for the specific lecturer I am talking about closed like a month ago.

They had three different lecturers for the course. The first one took like Week 1-3 (and as far as I know, set the first quiz), the next took like Week 4-8 (and fairly sure he set the second quiz) and the third lecturer took Weeks 9 -12.

It is the second lecturer that I am pissed off with. I guess I could always just include it in the last lecturer's evaluation and then just specifically name the second lecturer. Also, the third lecturer is the actual lecturer in charge. I initially emailed the lecturer in charge regarding the question and then I got an email from the second lecturer. Since then all the emails I have sent the second lecturer have been CCed to the lecturer in charge. I still haven't got an email from the lecturer in charge, and somehow the second lecturer managed to get an email that was sent specifically to the lecturer in charge.
 
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