Financial Maths 101

A little light diversion for y'all today.  My stepson is in the middle of his finals at University in Belfast.  You might remember him and his girlfriend Clare - well, you'd remember her shoes at least.  He's under pressure, for he has an unbelievably good job offer from BT which is dependent on him getting a 2.1.  Not easy when you're doing a degree in Maths with Computer Science.  He's good on the old computery-stuff, but final year Maths stuff is, well, somewhat challenging, shall we say.

I should know, 'cos I did a degree in Mathematics a very long time ago (before I found out that Computer Science was a lot easier).

So he messaged me at the weekend, in some sort of panic-mode since his exam in Financial Maths is, well, today.  You'll have to excuse the digital images for once but this is what he sent me:

Still with me?  Good, then we shall proceed by simplifying the second term (you just knew I was going to say that, didn't you :)

I like the comment from the Lecturer 'There is a lot of scope for making errors...', followed by a "much easier" approach.

I'll spare you the final page - although please let me know if I've left you hanging and you really need to know how this ends or else you'll never get to sleep...

Rather him than me, that's all I can say.  I did give it a good look but the terms are so complex it's hard to see the wood for the trees - and it's over 30 years since I did anything remotely similar to this.  My stepson has a good strategy, though.  In his own words, 'I'll have to be on my bullshit A-game tomorrow'.  Indeed he will.