STUDENT Surname: .........................................................................................

First name: .........................................................................................

Number: R _ _ _ _ _ _ _

General arrangements for a proper course of the exams

- Before the start of the exam, put your exam card and student card visible on your desk.
- Switch off all multimedia devices and put them beyond reach.
- Having within reach multimedia devices with communication or digital storage like mobile phone,
smartphone, smartwatch, graphic calculator (unless explicitly mentioned as allowed material),… is
always considered to be an examination irregularity and will be sanctioned as fraud, regardless of the
intention or use. Place your pen case and (hand)bag out of reach as well.
- Examination paper
o Only use the official examination paper that was on your desk.
o Write your name and your student number above, write clearly and legibly throughout.
o Check that the name of your teacher is below.
o Do NOT detach your exam paper.
o Return all papers that were handed out, including drafts.

Allowed material:
- Handbook, copies of slides, solved exercises, written study notes, …
- Graphical calculator
Specific arrangements:
- Do not round intermediate results. Round final answers to two decimals unless stated otherwise.
- You have to find the solutions by hand using algebra techniques, unless stated otherwise. Simply
providing the final answer as given by the calculator will result in a zero score for the requested
calculation.

TEACHER(S): Eric Boeckx (D1-3 + D7-9 + fast track), Ilse Spruyt (D4-6 + D10-12)

EXAM OPO code: OPO/OLA name:

HBA 42C
Mathematics for Business B
Moment Date: Start:
2/09/2020 12:30 pm

Duration Duration exam:

3 hours
Info Number of pages Attachments:
(incl. front page): None
3

Mark obtained:
/20
Question 1 (5 points)
a) An employer gives every staff member in his company 300 hours of leave at the beginning of each
year. Of the hours of leave not taken in one year, there is a general arrangement that any employee
can transfer 60% of these hours to the following year.
Rafael started working in this company on January 1, 2010. Every year, he takes up 250 hours of leave.
Let rn be the number of hours of leave that Rafael has at the beginning of the 𝑛-th year since 2010.
i. Write down a recursive equation with initial condition for the number of hours of leave rn at
the start of the year 2010  n .
ii. Use the general term of the sequence rn to find Rafael’s number of hours of leave at the
beginning of the year 2020.
iii. Under the given circumstances, how many hours of leave will Rafael have in the long run?
iv. How many hours of leave should Rafael have taken up every year if he would like to have 400
hours of leave at the beginning of the year 2020? Round the final result to the unit.

b) Find the value of the constant a  0 in the given sum below such that the final result of the sum is
equal to 78728 . You are allowed the use of your graphical calculator to solve an algebraic equation.
6561 10
2a 2  3a3  4.5a 4   a .
128

Question 2 (2.5 points)

We all know that the usual arithmetic average for two real numbers 𝑥 and 𝑦 is given by the equation
𝑥+𝑦
𝑎(𝑥, 𝑦) = .
2
When the two numbers 𝑥 and 𝑦 are both strictly positive, there exists another well-known average, the
harmonic average ℎ(𝑥, 𝑦) defined by the equation
2𝑥𝑦
ℎ(𝑥, 𝑦) = .
𝑥+𝑦
Show (by solving an inequality) that the harmonic average of two strictly positive numbers is never larger than
the arithmetic average of these two numbers.

Question 3 (3.5 points)

A firm produces two versions of the same product: the first version is promoted as the house-brand for a
general public and the second serves as the high-class version for the more demanding customer. The
products have the following inverse demand functions
𝑝 = 120 − 3𝑞1 − 2𝑞2
{ 1
𝑝2 = 192 − 4𝑞1 − 6𝑞2
where 𝑝1 and 𝑝2 denote the unit prices for the two versions (in some unspecified monetary unit) and 𝑞1 and
𝑞2 the amounts demanded (in some unspecified unit as well).
a) Which production levels for the two versions make sense in the context of this problem? Show them
on a graph and provide the necessary explanations.

As part of the different branding of the two versions, the firm decides that the production of the first version
should be at least 50% higher than the production of the second version and that the unit price of the second
version should be at least 20 monetary units higher than the unit price of the first version.
b) Show the production levels for the two versions that satisfy these supplementary requirements as
well as the conditions from part a).

2
Question 4 (4.5 points)
Consider the following two functions of two variables with equations
𝑓(𝑥, 𝑦) = 8𝑥 − 2𝑥 2 − 2𝑦 2 + 7, 𝑔(𝑥, 𝑦) = 𝑥 3 𝑦.
a) Draw the contour line of the function 𝑓 and the contour line of the function 𝑔 both passing through
the point (𝑥, 𝑦) = (3,1) on one and the same graph.
b) Show that these two contour lines touch each other at the point (𝑥, 𝑦) = (3,1), i.e. they have the
same tangent line there. Do not base your answer on part a) above, we need a computation.
c) There are more points than just (3,1) for which the tangent lines to both contour lines are identical:
give an implicit equation for the curve consisting of all the points (𝑥, 𝑦) where this happens. You do
not need to draw this curve.

Question 5 (4.5 points)

A firm produces a certain product and it uses two kinds of raw materials to do that. Its production function is
given by the equation
𝑄 = 7𝑞1 2 + 7𝑞2 2 + 6𝑞1 𝑞2
where 𝑄 denotes the amount of production and 𝑞1 and 𝑞2 the amounts of the raw materials needed.
Furthermore, the product is sold at 3 monetary units per unit of production and the production cost in terms
of the raw material needed is given by the equation
𝐶 = 4𝑞1 3 + 4𝑞2 3 .
a) Show that the profit function in terms of the amounts 𝑞1 and 𝑞2 is given by the equation
𝑃 = −4𝑞13 − 4𝑞23 + 21𝑞1 2 + 21𝑞2 2 + 18𝑞1 𝑞2 .
b) For which amounts of input for the raw materials is the maximum profit realized? To this end,
determine the critical point(s) for 𝑃(𝑞1 , 𝑞2 ) and the nature of these points. You may use the graphical
calculator to solve an algebraic equation of one variable.
c) Argue that the result from b) leads to an absolute maximum for the profit (and not just a relative
maximum) by looking at the full domain. What is the maximum profit that the firm can realize in that
case?