08/09/2025
SUCKED AT ALL EASY COURSES, BUT ACED AT THE TRICKY ONE:
HOW TO GET A+ ON PRODUCTION AND OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT BY PROF MOTOHASHI ISAKU
If you are an APM student, this is a required subject. The grading is quite challenging: 50% in-class reports and 50% final exam. Let’s get into it!
------------------------------------------------
1. In-class report
📍What is this?
The report is to check your level of understanding of the lecture. You’ll be given about 15 minutes at the end of class to finish it.
You’ll usually have around 6–7 reports in total, which means one report every other week. But watch out—sometimes the professor might assign reports two weeks in a row, so make sure you attend every class.
📍Report content and requirements:
⚠️ Attention! This report is not about summarizing the entire lecture. The professor will ask you to summarize just one part of it. Meaning—you need in-depth knowledge of every section.
For example: summarize the part "Control (X - R) chart" in the topic "Quality assurance and quality control".
If the lecture covers multiple sections, the report will only focus on one.
If you just list a few bullet points or definitions, expect around 6–7/10.
To get 9–10/10, you must include:
- General knowledge of the assigned section (obviously)
- The key points emphasized in class
- Your own experience related to the section
*A good report is expected to be 300–400 words.
But writing an essay like that in 15 minutes? Crazy, right? What if you didn’t even understand the lecture well enough to write an in-depth report?
📍Ok, here are my tips:
💯 Read the slides before class. Understand the concepts and draft a short explanation in advance. That way, if there’s a report, you save time from rewriting definitions.
💯 During class: take notes! Especially keywords the professor repeats. He sometimes shows content not included in the slides—don’t miss those. (Highly recommend taking notes on a laptop for quick transfer into your essay.)
💯 Recommended Report structure:
+ Summary of the section (as much as possible)
+ Key emphasis: how this section contributes to management goals, and how it connects to the lecture as a whole
+ Conclusion: why this section matters
+ Personal experience: how it relates to your life, project, part-time job, etc., and how the knowledge might help you in the future
👉Include all these points and you’re likely to get a 9 or even 10.
----------
2. Final Exam
This is 50% of your grade. Which means: fail this = say bye-bye to A+ (or even an A). The good news? You can totally prepare well and stay chill in the exam room.
📍 Exam structure
It’s paper-based. Yes—you literally get a blank sheet to write your essay on 😅.
The question looks like: “Summarize what you have learned about [topic], and explain how it helps you in the future.”
You’ll have ~1 hour to answer, so yes, it’s basically an essay.
Back in my time, we were given 2 topics to choose from.
Example:
"a. Labor Relations b. Production Lot and Inventory
Pick one, summarize what you learned, and explain its relevance to your future career."
📍 How to prepare:
Another piece of good news: You can bring printed material into the exam room!
Thinking of printing all the slides? Forget it. Slides are mostly graphs and tables—useless for writing a long essay under time pressure.
Here’s a better way:
💯 Prepare a detailed study guide (basically your own textbook) for all 15 topics: definitions, explanations, and how to apply each concept in real life.
💯 Brainstorm in advance how you’d use this knowledge as a manager in the production chain. (Remember, the course is called Production and Operations Management—you need to see the big picture.)
👉 Last time, I made a 100-page outline—basically a short textbook. But trust me, it saved me tons of time in the exam.
And of course, just listing definitions won’t cut it. You need to show understanding of the ultimate goal of each topic.
------------------------------------------------
Ok, that’s it! Try your best, and the results won’t disappoint you.
Hope this helps! 🙌
👉 Follow this page for real study tips, and join the APU A+ Study Squad group to share your own journey. We’ll figure this out together.
