GAS1751

Quantitative methods 1

H Nath, R Egudo, A Carr and D Wilson

6 points
* 4 hours per week (52 hours integrated lectures and tutorials)
* First semester
* Gippsland/distance
* Prerequisites: The subject assumes a mathematical background at about Year 11 (fifth form) level

Objectives The student is expected to understand and apply some of the standard mathematical and statistical techniques used in analysis of business problems and in the decision-making based on such analysis.

Synopsis The topics covered include basic mathematical concepts, functions and their graphs, exponential and logarithmic functions. Solutions of systems of linear equations and inequations. Arithmetic and geometric sequences; financial calculations relating to simple and compound interest, discount notes, annuities, amortisation, sinking funds and equations of value. Index numbers, especially the Australian CPI and its uses. Statistics - nature of statistical investigations, collection, presentation and interpretation of data; measures of centrality and dispersion; population distributions, the normal distribution; the sampling distribution of the sampling mean; statistical inference - interval estimation for the population mean (large and small samples), choosing the sample size, sampling from a small population, basic concepts for hypothesis testing, one-tailed and two-tailed testing of hypotheses, testing an hypothesis about the population mean (large and small samples); introduction to simple linear regression.

Assessment Class test and assignments: 50%
* Examination: 50%

Prescribed texts

Waxman P Business mathematics and statistics 3rd edn, Prentice-Hall, 1993