RE: [seul-edu] Math teachers...

[jeff williams <cfiaime@mpks.net>]

On Fri, 21 Jul 2000, you wrote:
> Individual skills run through simulators can be a lot of fun.  Back in high
> school we did a stock market simulation.  Everyone started out with some
> funny money and was allowed to use it to participate in any of the
> securities covered in the Wall Street Journal and/or NYT.  Since real life
> daytraders do most of their work through a PC, it can be a reasonable
> facsimile of real life.

Greetings!

In following this thread, I am fondly reminded of my final in either statistics
or operations analysis (both taught by the same teacher in a pressure cooker
program).  This was for my BS in management from Elmhurst College.

It came to pass the instructor was a history major.  The final was an analysis
of the Bath House John and Hinky-Dink Henna mayoral election in Chicago in the
late 1800's.  You know Chicago politics, "vote early, vote often!"  "Can dead
men vote twice?" 

Please remember this was in 1985, so the figures are off.  But the basic idea
was, you've got a war chest of $15,000 to throw the election.  A drunk vote
costs $1, a dead vote costs $1.25, a double a whopping $2.  You've got a
maximum number of drunks available, and just so many cemetary votes.  We had to
maximize the use of the $15,000 and report our findings.

There were two ways to do the final.  Either you could do the math, or you
could do the historical research.

Simulation at its best!

-- 
jeff williams - cfiaime@mpks.net
                    jbw9586@ksu.edu