D775 - Intro to Business Finance

Making this post because there's very little advice online due to this being a new course.

•Firstly, do not get cocky. I passed upper level finance courses at a brick + mortar school in the past, but failed the first practice test for this course. Make sure you actually study

• The OA I took today (June 2025) had a heavy focus on Section 1 material. This includes systems, markets, stocks/bonds, etc. Make sure you have a solid grasp on all these topics. (No joke there were like 30 questions just about this section.)

• Make sure you understand decision rules for NPV and IRR. -Positive NPV is good, negative bad

• IRR higher than required rate of return is good, lower is bad. I had trouble fully grasping these concepts in theory but if you follow these decision rules, you'll be fine. Don't waste your time trying to understand the concepts if they're too difficult. Just use the decision rules.

•Understand the 5 ratio types. Be able to distinguish between liquidity, probability, etc. Most of the ratio questions/answers were easy to deduce. Example: If the question was asking about profitability, the choices would be some combination of: a) Market ratio b) liquidity ratio c) Leverage ratio d) profitability ratio (correct)

^Understand the general concepts and what they mean

^^Oh also, all equations and ratios are provided for you in the exam for reference. I wish someone would have told me this before trying to remember them all.

Lastly, TVM is huge. This can be a tough concept to grasp, especially when you start dealing with annuities. I think if you can grasp the intro to this section, you should be fine. Most of these questions were general, like "which of these numbers is PV? which is FV?"

The OA was vastly easier for me than the practice assessment. I scored exemplary in all categories. Don't let anyone try to make you feel dumb - Finance is hard. Put in the study hours and you'll be fine. Just wanted to offer some perspective on the OA that I took, and what you should focus on. Good luck