UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND
Master of Business Administration
Waiver Exams
Waiver exams are available to all matriculated MBA students only. They take the form of a sit-down exam. See the descriptions below. There is no fee associated with taking the exams. Exams are pass/fail - you can only take it once and if you do not pass, you are required to take the core class. If you are interested in taking these exams, please contact the Graduate Programs Office (contact).
Exams are available for the following required MBA courses only:
- MBA 500: Statistical Methods for Management
- MBA 504: Financial Management
- MBA 505: Managerial Marketing
Please review the policy for each waiver below:
MBA 500: Statistical Methods for Management
This exam is open book, open notes and calculators are allowed. You will have a maximum of two hours to take the exam.
Topics that are covered on the exam may include:
- Data presentation
- Probability Theory
- Discrete and Continuous Distributions
- Confidence Intervals
- Statistical Inference based on limited sample information
- One and Two Sample Inferences
- Linear Regression and nonparametric statistics
- Chi-square tests and other such techniques
Suggested reading: Basic Business Statistics, Berenson, Levine and Krehbiel
MBA 504: Financial Management
You are given 3 hours to take this exam. It is open book and calculators are allowed.
The exam is broken up into the following areas:
- Multiple Choice
- Problem Solving
It is suggested to study from the topics that are covered in the class syllabi, below.
| Chapter | Topics |
| 1 | Introduction |
| 1, 3 | Financial Environment, Financial Statements |
| 13, 14 | Financial Statement Analysis, Financial Planning and Forecasting |
| 4, 5 | Risk and Return |
| 2 | Time Value of Money |
| 6, 7 | Bond Valuation, Stock Valuation |
| 9, 18 | Cost of Capital, Dividend Policy |
| 10, 11 | Capital Budgeting, Cash Flow Estimation |
| 19 | Initial Public Offering |
| 16, 17 | Capital Structure Decisions |
| 24, 25, 26 | Bankruptcy, Reorganization and Liquidation, Mergers, LBOs, Divestitures and Holding Company, Multinational Financial Management |
Suggested reading: Financial Management Theory and Practice, 11th edition 2004, Eugene F. Brigham and Michael C. Ehrhardt.
MBA 505: Managerial Marketing
You are given 3 hours to take this exam and it is closed book.
The exam is made up of six open ended questions. Unfortunately we cannot list specifically what is on the exam or it would give away the answers, so we suggest reviewing basic marketing principles by reviewing the suggested reading below.
Suggested reading: Principles of Marketing, Philip Kotler.