Bloomington Tutors | Blog Finite math, K201, calculus, and statistics explained

Calculus M119
Jan 14, 2019

1.4b Budget constraint w/ fixed prices for 2 items

You have a budget of 500 dollars for books ($x$) and CDs ($y$). The total spent on books is $55x$ and the total spent on CDs is $15y$. Write an equation in the form of $y = mx+b$ then solve for $y$.

Supply and Demand Problems

Supply and demand both relate quantity $q$ of an item to the price $p$.

Supply curve: Increasing function. $q$ increases as $p$ increases

• The higher the price that sellers can charge for an item, the more quantity they will produce.
• If sellers can NOT sell an item for more money than it costs to manufacture, then they would choose not to manufacture it.

Demand Curve: Decreasing function. $q$ decreases as $p$ increases

• The more an item costs, the less buyers will want to buy it (less quantity will be demanded).
• If price is too high, NO items will be sold.

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Finite M118
Sep 05, 2017

Finite Math - Probability with Combinations

This video covers one of the more challenging types of combination and probability problems that are commonly seen on finite exams. We'll need to split the event space into two cases, and compute the number of combinations for each case. Finally, we'll add our two cases together and divide by the total number of combinations in our sample space.

This content was developed with the help of our tutors Grace and Alex, and our design intern Patrick. Thanks everyone!

Finite M118
Aug 30, 2017

Finite Math - Set Theory

Welcome to to the very first video in our finite math series! In this video, we'll talk about the basic concept of sets. Then, we'll use these concepts to frame a simple problem that involves determining how many elements are in a set.

This content was developed with the help of our tutors Grace and Alex, and our design intern Patrick. Thanks everyone!

Apr 23, 2017

GP9 - Text Functions - LEFT, RIGHT, MID, LEN, FIND, and CONCATENATE

To be honest, Excel's text functions are kind of awkward and limited. Unlike full-blown programming languages like Python and Javascript, you don't have access to regular expressions or standard string functions such as split, join, and replace. Instead, you have to make due with complicated combinations of Excel's LEFT, RIGHT, MID, LEN, FIND, and CONCATENATE formulas to manipulate text.

In this video, we walk you through a common GP9 string (text) manipulation problem that asks you to use these functions to split, format, and rearrange text into more useful representations.

Apr 17, 2017

GP8 - One- and two-variable data tables and what-if analysis

Even casual Excel users have probably encountered a situation where they wanted to test a formula against a range of possible input values. One way to do this is by simply copying a formula down a column or row of your table. A more structured way of doing this, though, is Excel's Data Tables (What-if Analysis) feature. Most K201 students don't usually have much trouble with figuring out how this feature works, but it can be easy to forget under the pressure of an exam.

Actually, the trickiest thing we cover in this video is defining custom data formats. We're not sure why, but K201 GPs and exams usually like to ask you to create custom data formats as a followup to two-variable data table questions.