During the week of 6/7/2012 through 6/14/2012, eight homes were sold in Paradise Valley, Arizona in the area code 85253. The sales prices for these homes are listed below.
Solution Use the MODE command in a spreadsheet to compute the mode of the data.
1. Enter the data from the table into the different cells in a spreadsheet.
2. Click on cell A11. This is where we will place the mode of the data. Type =MODE( as shown to the right. The command will be shown in the cell as well as the function bar. To indicate the location of the data, type A2:A9. You can also click in cell A2, hold the left mouse button down and drag the cursor to cell A9.
You probably noticed that the process we used to solve linear systems in Section 2.2 is almost identical to the process we used to solve linear systems in Section 2.4.
To make this concrete, let’s compare the steps for the system
Suppose we want to construct a stock portfolio containing two stocks. If we have $50,000 to invest and desire a total dividend return of 3%, how much must we invest in each stock?
Although this is a pretty simple portfolio, it gives us insight into how we can model the portfolio with a system of linear equations.