The tutor promotes his equal-opportunity point of view towards computing. I use Microsoft’s programs: witness my post from Sept 28 about using Excel to calculate IRR. However, some of my computers aren’t Windows; rather, they’re Linux. I don’t have a …
Spreadsheets: internal rate of return (IRR) on LibreOffice Calc Read more »
The tutor offers points about combining probabilities. My gut reaction, thinking about when to add probabilities, is that it’s done less often than multiplying. However, there is one obvious type of situation in which you add: Example 1 Each ticket …
The tutor finally brings up the elephant in the room. I’ve been writing this blog since August 2012; herein are over 500 articles confronting problems, methods, or ideas that might occur in an academic milieu. Numerous of them centre on …
Spreadsheets: Excel: calculating internal rate of return (IRR) Read more »
The tutor wades into a case of conditional probability. Conditional probability involves the idea that with extra knowledge of a situation, the likelihood of a given outcome can change. Consider the following premise: Example 1 At ABC Insurance, the general …
The tutor imagines an experiment in probability. For most people, probability becomes interesting when you can apply it to a believable situation. Let’s explore the following premise: Example 1 Around a farm live twelve wild foxes. Eleven are red, but …
The tutor reflects on the beginning of what might be his favourite season. I don’t recall the first day of fall being the 23rd. I would naively have imagined it to be the 21st, as it always seemed to be …
The tutor discusses a short story from a grade nine literature textbook. Searching for reading material for my students, I recently chose “The Landlady” by Roald Dahl, from the textbook In Context: Anthology Three. For a tutor, choosing literature that’s …
English: High School Literature: Roald Dahl’s “The Landlady” Read more »
The tutor brings up a real-life application for geometric sequences. A geometric sequence is a list of numbers that keep changing by a constant ratio; for example: 3,6,12,24,48…. In the above sequence, t3=12. A perfect fit for geometric sequences is …
The tutor shares another plant he noticed in the neighborhood. On the way in for lunch at a pub with my wife, I pointed to a plant with big orange capsules hanging from it like Christmas ornaments. “I’ve seen those …
The tutor introduces a typical arithmetic series example. An arithmetic series is a sum of numbers which change by repeated addition. An example: 5+11+17+23+….+143 The question posed might be as follows: Find the sum of the arithmetic series 5+11+17+23+….+143. Solution: …