The academic essay Assignment in this unit will be a written, cohesive argument for a specific change in your community or workplace. The Assignment should take the form of a persuasive essay, in which you will provide reliable evidence from at least four sources to support the argument for change that you are advocating. You will also need to address a counter-argument or misconception about your topic within the essay, as the ability to do so is a key component of a strong argument. Essentially, the essay will reflect what you have learned about writing effectively, using research, and creating a logical argument to influence an audience. Your persuasive essay will need to meet the following criteria: · APA 6th Edition format for the document, including an appropriately formatted title page and References page · A thesis statement at the end of the introduction paragraph · Well-developed paragraphs that include evidence from sources to support your argument for a specific change in your community or workplace · Four reliable sources should be cited within the text of the Assignment; at least one of the cited sources should be either a book/ebook or a periodical article · All cited sources need to have full citations on a References page (except for any interviews you conduct, which only require in-text citations) · Standard American English and a formal tone throughout the writing · Only the third person point of view should be used Achieving the above criteria should be your main goal with your academic essay. A strong and well-supported argument will be at least 4 pages (1,000 words long), not including the title page and references page. 1 Quantitative Methods for Business SAIBT Assignment 2 S1 2015 Due Monday 11 May 2015  The assignments are to be submitted by 1:00pm on the due date on line. A hard copy is to be handed in during class.  An assignment submitted late, without an extension being granted, will attract a penalty of 5% (5 marks) per each working day or part thereof beyond the due day and time. Please refer to the Course Information Booklet for the course policy regarding extensions.  Please remember to fill out and attach a cover sheet. A copy of the cover sheet can be downloaded from the Course web page.  Please make sure that the pages of your submission are in the correct order and that they are stapled securely in the top left-hand corner only. Please make sure that each page shows your name and the page number.  Your assignment submission does not have to be typed; neat and legible hand-written solutions are sufficient. Poor presentation will attract a penalty of 10%.  Please – no plastic sleeves or any type of folder!  Please copy and paste any EXCEL printouts into your assignment  All graphs and tables must include your USER ID in the title  Show all your work! Question 1 (Total of 30 marks) Your local Chamber of Commerce periodically sponsors public service seminar ...

1. The academic essay Assignment in this unit will be a written,
cohesive argument for a specific change in your community or
workplace. The Assignment should take the form of a
persuasive essay, in which you will provide reliable evidence
from at least four sources to support the argument for change
that you are advocating. You will also need to address a
counter-argument or misconception about your topic within the
essay, as the ability to do so is a key component of a strong
argument. Essentially, the essay will reflect what you have
learned about writing effectively, using research, and creating a
logical argument to influence an audience.
Your persuasive essay will need to meet the following criteria:
· APA 6th Edition format for the document, including an
appropriately formatted title page and References page
· A thesis statement at the end of the introduction paragraph
· Well-developed paragraphs that include evidence from sources
to support your argument for a specific change in your
community or workplace
· Four reliable sources should be cited within the text of the
Assignment; at least one of the cited sources should be either a
book/ebook or a periodical article
· All cited sources need to have full citations on a References
page (except for any interviews you conduct, which only require
in-text citations)
· Standard American English and a formal tone throughout the
writing
· Only the third person point of view should be used
Achieving the above criteria should be your main goal with your
academic essay. A strong and well-supported argument will be
at least 4 pages (1,000 words long), not including the title page
and references page.

2. 1
Quantitative Methods for Business SAIBT
Assignment 2 S1 2015
Due Monday 11 May 2015
s are to be submitted by 1:00pm on the due
date on line. A hard copy is to be handed in
during class.
granted, will attract a penalty of 5% (5 marks)
per each working day or part thereof beyond the due day and
time. Please refer to the Course Information
Booklet for the course policy regarding extensions.
of the cover sheet can be downloaded from
the Course web page.
make sure that the pages of your submission are in the
correct order and that they are stapled
securely in the top left-hand corner only. Please make sure that
each page shows your name and the page
number.
o be typed; neat
and legible hand-written solutions are
sufficient. Poor presentation will attract a penalty of 10%.

3. – no plastic sleeves or any type of folder!
assignment
and tables must include your USER ID in the title
Question 1 (Total of 30 marks)
Your local Chamber of Commerce periodically sponsors public
service seminars. In your role as the
marketing manager, you are putting together an advertising plan
for this year’s program of events. The
promotional budget is $25,000. Advertising alternatives include
television, radio and newspaper. You
have obtained the following estimates for the size of an
audience and cost for each type of
advertisement:
Television Radio Newspaper
Audience per ad 50000 18000 20,000
Cost per ad $2,500 $600 $500
Past experience suggests that at most ten TV advertisements
should be aired. Similarly, no more than
15 newspaper ads will be placed. For radio, maximum usage is
set at 15 advertisements. You must find

4. 2
the mix of advertisements that will reach a maximum audience.
You have decided to use linear
programming to obtain a solution to the problem before you.
Give the full mathematical model for this problem.
a. (2 marks) What are the decision variables for this problem?
b. (2 marks) Using decision variables identified in part (a),
formulate the objective function for this
problem. Is the quantity of interest to be maximized or
minimized? Explain briefly.
c. (2 marks) What is the limited resource in this problem? Using
decision variables from part (a),
formulate the constraint for this resource.
d. (2 marks) What other constraints are relevant to this
problem? Using the decision variables from
part (a), formulate those constraints.
e. (2 marks) Suppose that to ensure a balanced use of
advertising media, radio advertisements must
not exceed 60% of the total number of advertisements
authorized. Using decision variables from
part (a), formulate a constraint based on this requirement. Use

5. algebra to rewrite this constraint in
the standard linear format.
f. (2 marks) Suppose that, in addition, television should
account for at least 5 % of the total number of
advertisements authorized. Using decision variables from part
(a), formulate a constraint based on
this requirement in the standard linear format.
(4 marks) Use SOLVER to produce the answer and sensitivity
reports required to answer the
following questions.
1. (2 marks) What is the optimal number of adverts for each of
the media?
2. (2 marks) What is the maximum audience?
3. (2 marks) How much of the budget has been spent?
4. (4 marks) If the radio audience per advertisement doubled to
36,000 would the optimum
number of advertisements change? Explain how you know.
5. (4 marks) If the provisional budget is increased to $30,000
what impact, if any, will this increase
have on the maximum audience?
3

6. Question 2 (Total 20 marks)
In January 2002, John, having recently graduated from UNISA
established a business as a financial advisor.
His uncle who was planning to retire in one years time asked
John to recommend a management investment
fund that he can investment in by buying units on a weekly
basis. The uncle also wanted the option to sell his
units at any time at the current price. John’s uncle recently
complained to John that he had received very
poor advice and that he was not in a position financially to
retire as he had planned. Thinking back to his
QMB course John decided to summarize the weekly prices data
for about the past two and a half years. The
data file is available on the portal (Assignment 2 Future
Leaders.xls)
John asks you to summarize the data
(a) (6 marks) Make a histogram and obtain Descriptive
Statistics, including Quartile 1 and Quartile 3 for
both data sets, . Attach printouts of your data, histogram and
Descriptive Statistics to your assignment
submission.
EXCEL Instructions:
Add your network ID to the column name ggsj001).
Create another column called PRICES with numbers from 1.50
to 5.0 in steps of 0.5 i.e. 1.5, 2.0, 2.50
and so on up to 5). Please make sure that the title of your
histogram ends with your network ID

7. (b) (6 marks) Describe the shape (symmetry, modality and
outliers) for the distribution.
Instructions for identifying outliers:
Whether an observation is an outlier is a matter of judgement.
One rule commonly used for identifying
outliers is the so-called 1.5 × IQR rule. An observation is
suspected to be an outlier if it is more than 1.5
× IQR below the first quartile Q1 or above the third quartile Q3.
Apply this rule to Entry Price and identify suspected outliers (if
any) by using the calculated amounts.
(c) (8 marks) For the distribution nominate appropriate
summary measures for Entry Price ($). Give
reason(s) for your choice. For the distribution, give and
interpret the values of the summary measures you
have chosen.
Question 3 (Total of 25 marks)
John decides that in addition to summarizing the data he should
analyze the change in prices over time. In
order to d3etermine the growth or otherwise of prices over time
and that he should ask you to produce
1regression plot and equation for the set of data
a) (4 marks) Produce a regression plot with trend line and
suitable labels

8. 4
b) (3 marks) Include the regression equation and coefficient of
determination
i) (3 marks) What is the value of the slope? Interpret what the
value means.
ii) (3 marks)What is value of the intercept? Interpret what the
value means
iii) (3 marks) Calculate the coefficient of determination and
explain what the value means.
iv) (3 marks) Using the equation predict the price of a unit on 3
January 2003.
v) (3 marks) Are you confident about your prediction? Give
reasons for your answer.
vi) (3 marks) Is John’s uncle entitled to be concerned about his
investment?
Question 4 (Total of 25 marks)
In June 2009, the average Australian credit card account
balance was $3,127, according to data extracted
from the Reserve Bank of Australia www.rba.gov.au . Assuming
that these balances are approximately
normally distributed with a mean of $3,127 and a standard

9. deviation of $1,500:
a) (5 marks) Find the probability that an account balance is less
than $2,500. Use a diagram! Clearly
indicate any properties of the Normal distribution that you are
using to facilitate your calculation.
b) (5 marks) One quarter of credit card accounts carry at least
what balance? Use a diagram!
c) (5 marks) Suppose that 100 credit card account balances are
randomly selected. What is the
probability that the average account balance in this sample is
greater than $3,200? Use a diagram!
d) (5 marks) Construct and interpret a 99 % confidence interval
with a sample mean of $3180.
e) (5 marks) What sample size is required for the margin of
error to be $120 for this confidence
interval?
http://www.rba.gov.au/