86 points included...

Cool beans is a locally owned coffee shop that competes with two large coffee chains, planeteuro and frothies. alicia, the owner, hired two students to count the number of customers that entered each of the coffee shops to estimate what percent of people who are interested in coffee are visiting each shop. after a week, the students found the following results: 589 visited cool beans, 839 visited planeteuro, and 1,290 visited frothies. the students were surprised that cool beans had 139 visits on monday which represented 59% of all people who visited one of the three coffee shops on mondays. how many people visited one of the three coffee shops during the week?

Suppose you win a small lottery and have the choice of two ways to be paid: you can accept the money in a lump sum or in a series of payments over time. if you pick the lump sum, you get $2,950 today. if you pick payments over time, you get three payments: $1,000 today, $1,000 1 year from today, and $1,000 2 years from today. 1) at an interest rate of 6% per year, the winner would be better off accepting the (lump sum / payments over time), since it has the greater present value. 2) at an interest rate of 9% per year, the winner would be better off accepting the (lump sum / payments over time), since it has the greater present value. 3) years after you win the lottery, a friend in another country calls to ask your advice. by wild coincidence, she has just won another lottery with the same payout schemes. she must make a quick decision about whether to collect her money under the lump sum or the payments over time. what is the best advice to give your friend? a) the lump sum is always better. b) the payments over time are always better. c) it will depend on the interest rate; advise her to get a calculator. d) none of these answers is good advice.

Qwest airlines has implemented a program to recycle all plastic drink cups used on their aircraft. their goal is to generate $7 million by the end of the recycle program's five-year life. each recycled cup can be sold for $0.005 (1/2 cent). a. how many cups must be recycled annually to meet this goal? assume uniform annual plastic cup usage and a 0% interest rate. b. repeat part (a) when the annual interest rate is 12%. c. why is the answer to part (b) less than the answer to part (a)?