1. 'The most we can say about the Demand Curve is that it slopes down unless it slopes up.' Discuss.

2. Explain the determination of the optimal price and output combination in a situation of monopolistic competition. Use the resulting equilibrium to illustrate the statement that 'production inefficiency is a necessary price to pay for product variety'. Comment on this statement.

3. Assess the contribution of business games to the study of decisionmaking processes, illustrating your answer by reference to one business game with which you are familiar.

4. 'Given that the future is unknown, the best we can do is to estimate the likelihood of future events and then use expected profit as the decision criterion.' Discuss.

5. The senior partner in a local accountancy firm is concerned about the error rate amongst assessments issued by her office. A careful check over the past few years enables her to estimate that the error rate has the following probability distribution: Error rate Probability 0.05 0.25 0.10 0.35 0.15 0.25 0.20 0.15 Each error costs 40 because of the labour time involved in reassessment. Her firm is just entering the assessment 'season', and is expected to perform 500 assessments over the next few months. One way to reduce the error rate is to send all staff to a one-day training course at the local university- 'Precision in Assessment' . The university claims this would ensure an error rate of 0.05, but she considers that an error rate of 0.10 would be equally likely. The course fee is 700 for all her staff, whilst lost profit from one day's work missed would be 500. Advise her on whether to send staff on the course or not. A careful check of that day's output shows that in ten assessments, two contained errors. Use this information to update the error rate probability distribution and hence determine whether your advice needs amendment.

6. 'The fitting of mathematical trend curves is by far the easiest and cheapest method of forecasting long-run changes in product demand, and is likely to be just as reliable as any alternative method. ' Discuss.

7. An engineering firm has applied for patents on two new products and has just learned that only one application has been successful. Compare and contrast the optimal pricing and promotional strategies for each of these new products.