Using and managing data and information
BA3005 2024-25
Assignment 1
Note to students:
This assignment contributes 40% to the overall mark of the module.
There are FOUR tasks and you are expected to complete all of them. Your work
should be submitted as a single word processor file and uploaded using the
Turnitin submission link made available to you on weblearn.
The deadline for this assignment is (Friday 15th November 2024 before 3pm).
Task 1
You work as a financial advisor for a private investor, and you are asked to invest
£6m of her money on three funds. The private investor indicated that they want
their funds to be high risk for high returns.
Important information
Once the three funds are identified, you have decided to invest £3m in the first fund,
£2 million in the second fund and £1m in the last fund.
Required
1. You need to find the number of all possible sets (of three) funds from many
funds. Explain whether you need to calculate the number of permutations or
combinations in this case. You are not asked to calculate this number at this
stage. Your explanation should not be longer than 50 words.
2. You have identified six such (high risk for high returns) funds to choose from.
If each fund is chosen randomly from the list of 6 and with replacement and
the amount of money is invested as above, write down a formula to find the
number of all possible sets of three funds.
Your formula should be written using the equation editor in WORD.
Handwritten formulae will not be accepted.
3. Calculate the number of possible sets of 3 funds out of 6 funds.
Task 2
The number of hours spent in paid employment by a cohort of 9 students during the
autumn semester is recorded in the table below:
Student 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
No. of hours (𝑥) 12 9 0 5 8 11 15 17 4
Required:
Calculate the quantity: ∑(𝑥 − 𝑥̅ )2
∑𝑥
P.S. The 𝑥̅ is the average and is given by the formula: 𝑥̅ =
9
Task 3
A bathroom has a rectangular floor shape.
The total area of the bathroom is given by the formula:
𝑇𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑎 = 𝐿𝑒𝑛𝑔𝑡ℎ × 𝑊𝑖𝑑𝑡ℎ
The bathroom has been modified in such a way that the length has increased by 30%
and the width has decreased by 30%,.
Required:
1. Would the area of the bathroom change and by what percentage?
Show all your reasoning, working and calculations using equations written on
the equation editor in Word.
The new modified area is to be tiled. The unit price of each tile is given by the
formula:
𝑇𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑐𝑜𝑠𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑡𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑎
𝑈𝑛𝑖𝑡 𝑝𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑒 =
𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑎 𝑡𝑜 𝑏𝑒 𝑡𝑖𝑙𝑒𝑑
The total cost for tiling the new bathroom area relative to the cost for tiling the
previous bathroom area has increased by 12%.
2. Calculate the percentage change in the unit price of each tile. Give your
answer correct to the nearest whole percentage point. You should assume the
information
You need to show all your reasoning and calculations using equations written
on equation editor.
Task 4
For this task, you need to show all your workings, step by step. Stating only the final
answers will not gain full marks.
Scenario:
You invest £2500 at the beginning of each year in a cash ISA account that pays 6%
per year.
The formula below calculates the total accrued amount in the fund after 4 years.
𝐹𝑢𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒 𝑣𝑎𝑙𝑢𝑒 = 2500 × (1.061 + 1.062 + 1.063 + 1.064 )
Required:
1. Show that the mathematical formula for calculating the accrued amount after
4 years is given by:
(1.06 − 1.065 )
𝐴𝑐𝑐𝑟𝑢𝑒𝑑 𝑎𝑚𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑡 = 2500 ×
(1 − 1.06)
You need to refer to your lecture slides and in particular the formula for the
sum of the geometric progression.
2. Calculate the accrued amount of this investment using the formula above.
Give your answer correct to 2 decimal places.
3. Calculate the future value of this investment using an appropriate Excel
formula and compare this value to the value in 2. Above. You can either show
the Excel formula or a screenshot of Excel.
End of assignment
