- This topic has 8 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 11 years ago by
.
- Posts
Mr John, I am writing regarding the Bits and pieces question from June 2009 exam.
I am quoting:
(It has been agreed to pay time and a half to sales assistants that work on Sundays. The normal hourly rate is $20
per hour. In total five sales assistants will be needed for the six hours that the store will be open on a Sunday. They
will also be able to take a half-day off (four hours) during the week. Staffing levels will be allowed to reduce slightly
during the week to avoid extra costs being incurred.)Now my question is: when we come to calculate the relevant costs for this bit, shouldn’t we be taking into account the extra pay which is (5*20*1.5*6*50 weeks) But ALSO take into account the time will be saved and therefore the money saved which is (5 assistants * 20 hourly rate* 4 hours * 50 weeks) ? and the net should be the extra cost or even the saving. Why in the answer, the extra cost is the only thing being calculated, the answer says: extra staff cost is 45,000 and there is no reference to time and money saved!!
This is very confusing!Some point I forgot, I understand the fact that these labours are already employed, but they are paid hourly, that’s why their cost is not fixed and it is actually saved one day per week per annum.
The reason is this. If these people take half a day off, then even though they might not be paid it will need other people to do their work for them, and they would need paying 🙂
So, the net result is that the existing total wages stays the same. (In fact, it could have ended up costing more – making other people work longer – which is why the questions says they will avoid there being extra costs.)Thank you very much Mr John!! Even though I do feel that the wording of the question was misleading, actually that sentence of “Staffing levels will be allowed to reduce slightly during the week to avoid extra costs being incurred” is what made me sure that we should calculate the net cost/saving, I understood it as they will reduce the staff time during the week in order to make up for the Sunday extra cost!! But anyways, I am glad that you got it explained, now I know. Because when I saw them ignoring “what I thought” is the benefit/saving I thought to myself that we are supposed to calculate only the costs and I know that this is not the approach.
Thank you very much.
I agree that the wording is a little confusing at first reading (and more so when you are reading fast in the exam).
Obviously it is worrying because you want to be ‘perfect’ in the exam (and the more you practice and sort out this sort of problem then the more the wording will be less of a problem).
However, don’t worry too much – hopefully there will not be too many ‘problem wordings’ and provided you are showing enough workings to make it clear where you are getting your numbers from, then the occasional misunderstanding will not lose enough marks to fail you. Remember that you only need 50% to pass 🙂
It is not the final answer that matters – each bit is marked separately, and so although you obviously want to get all the bits correct you do not need to in order to get the 50%.Mr John, Million thanks for your kind words, it did give me some self confidence and I can say they are all 100% true! It was indeed worrying me because I want to be perfect in the exam just as you said which is not possible and I was wondering what if I get the same confusing words in the exam!! But thanks to your words, I keep ignoring that I only need 50 marks to pass and I let these details worry me so much which could possibly lead to failing because self confidence is required. I will do my best and I will have to update you once I get my results for the F5 exam 🙂
You have been such a fantastic tutor!
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.