Sample Exam-type Problems

Worksheet 1 "Fibonacci":

The first few fibonacci numbers are: 1,1,2,3,5,8,... where the first two numbers are always 1,1 and each subsequent number is found by adding the previous two. In the first column I want you to find the first 12 fibonacci numbers. In a column next to this one, I would like you to find the first 12 solutions to the equation: y = x^2 over the interval 1 <= x <= 12 where x is an integer. The interval should be placed in the third column. Once you have these two columns laid out, in a line graph underneath these columns show the graph of each set of numbers with all axes properly labeled and a chart title. The first few cells of your worksheet should look like:

Fib y=x^2 x
1 1 1
1 4 2

Worksheet 2 "Credit Card":

Solve the following problem. A friend of yours just got his first credit card and decided to buy a very nice surround sound stero system for his TV. The system cost was $980.00. As most credit cards work, you can make the minimum payment suggested with the monthly statement and you will remain in good standing with the credit card company. When the monthly statement arrived he was quite pleased to find that the minimum payment was $20. As many people do, he decided to make the minimum monthly payment becuase he really didn't have the money to pay off the entire debt. After hearing what your friend was doing, you decided to design a SS that shows your friend how long it will take him to pay off the debt if he continues to make the minimum payment and the yearly interest rate is 19.5%.

Design the SS with the following column headings:

1) Beginning Balance - balance at the beginning of the month
2) Monthly Interest - interest charged for the month
3) Minimum Payment - minimum monthly payment
4) Ending Balance - beginning balance plus monthly interest minus minimum payment.
5) Month - month that goes 1, 2, 3, ...

Allow the user a place on the worksheet to enter:

1) Beginning Balance
2) Minimum Payment
3) Fixed Interest Rate

In another cell at the top of the SS, show the amount of interest paid.

Here is a sample of the beginning of the spreadsheet. I have not included the total interest paid in this sample, but you need to in your solution. Hopefully, this will help, but ask if you are not sure.

Worksheet 3 "Savings":

  1. You have calculated that at your present rate of savings, you will have exactly $1,000,000 by the time you retire. We would like to know the number of years your retirement money will last if $50,000 is withdrawn at the beginning of each year and the remainder of the balance that year earns 4% interest (compounded yearly). Devise a worksheet using repetition that will show this answer. Draw a border around the last year that your money will run out.
  2. Check your answer with the NPER function. The NPER function is as follows: NPER(rate,pmt,pv,fv,type) - computes the number of payments necessary to reach a given future value fv, given the present value pv with periodic payment amount pmt, at a compounded interest rate, rate, per period. Type is 0 or 1 where 1=payment is at the beginning and 0=payment is at the end.

Worksheet 4 "House Tax":

For a random number of selected homes sold in Washington County, the annual tax amount (in thousands of dollars) and selling price (in thousands of dollars) are as follows:

Taxes: 4.0 2.4 1.8 1.5 1.4 1.4 3.0 1.9 Selling Price: 265 142 114 160 130 150 228 145

  1. Perform a Linear Regression on the above data using Excel.
  2. For an annual tax amount of $2,450, what might we expect the selling price of this house to be?
  3. For a selling price of $235,000, what might we expect the taxes to be for this house?