Applied Information And

Edexcel GCE Unit 3

6953/01

Edexcel GCE

Applied Information and

Communication Technology

Unit 3: The Knowledge Worker

May 2006

Scenario

Please open this material immediately. It should be distributed to candidates no sooner than three working weeks before the examination. The description overleaf will be used as the scenario for the above specification, and will be reissued with the examination paper. This scenario should be used in conjunction with the spreadsheet model supplied with the scenario, for the purposes of preparing candidates for the examination. This material must not be taken into the examination.

Further details are in the Instructions for the Conduct of Examinations, available from the Edexcel website for this qualification subject.

Edexcel will not accept any request for special consideration should candidates be given the incorrect scenario for the examination they are sitting.

Twisted Pear - The Capital Punishment Tour

The Problem

Twisted Pear are a five piece rock band formed in 1998 by brothers, Neil and Terry White, from Leeds. Terry is an accomplished guitarist and Neil plays keyboards. Other members of the group are Mel Green (percussion), Stacey Beardmore (bass) and Ruth Nixon (vocals). Although they have had a number of successful recordings their reputation is mainly as a live act. For the last four years they have toured the UK with spectacular shows. Each year the lighting and effects have been more spectacular and, consequently, more expensive than the previous year and this year has proved no exception. This year's tour includes a large laser show which would take 15 days to assemble from scratch. As it is not feasible to dismantle it and erect it each concert, the laser show has been split into three pieces and can be loaded onto a huge lorry. This lorry has to be escorted by police as it is classified as a wide load. The UK tour has been hailed as the best Twisted Pear tour ever!

News of the tour, and particularly its spectacular laser show, has spread into Europe where Twisted Pear already has a big following. So much interest has been shown that the band decided they would like to tour Europe. The Marketing Department of the band's management group, AC Enterprises, came up with the idea of 'The Capital Punishment Tour' where the band would hold concerts in a number of European capital cities playing for a single night only at a large open-air arena, usually a football stadium. The tour would start at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff on the 9th September and finish at Highbury in London on Christmas Eve. Having finalised the arrangements with the Millennium Stadium and Highbury, the management company contacted a number of venues in European capital cities and asked for details about hire costs and available dates.

The laser show is too heavy and too large to travel by plane so it will still have to travel by lorry. Ferries have been booked from Dover to Calais on the 1Oth September and from Calais to Dover on the 22nd December. The laser show lorry and two smaller lorries will drive from one venue to the next. Owing to its size the laser show lorry can only travel 150 miles a day. The laser show itself will take

two days to erect and one to dismantle.

Planning the Tour

You have been employed by AC Enterprises to advise it on the itinerary of the tour. It has been decided that the same ticket price (subject to fluctuations in the exchange rate) should be charged at each venue. AC Enterprises has asked you to recommend this ticket price. Your predecessor in the job has made a start and has left you a model which will help you make your decisions. Unfortunately the model is

incomplete. The incomplete model is in your examination folder and is called 'Twisted Pear Model'.

Description of the model

(Warning: - Hidden columns in the model contain formulae which are not protected. There should be no reason to change these formulae. If any are changed the model may not work properly. Areas where the model does not require changes are protected. There is no reason to change these areas but if you wish to the password is "edexcel".)

Worksheet /

Description

Concert Dates / When the model is complete this is the input screen into which you type the proposed dates for each of the concerts.
Distances / This worksheet will contain the distances the lorries have to travel. It already contains the distances between Calais and the UK venues. Distances between all the European venues will have to be filled in. The distance between Calais and all the European venues will have to be filled in.
Dates / This is a multi purpose worksheet. Once the concert dates have been entered the spreadsheet will work out when the lorry has to arrive in order for the laser show to be set up in time for the concert. There is a sort button which will sort the venues in the worksheet into order using the date of the concert. This should be done each time a new set of dates is tried in the model. Should there be a problem with the itinerary, for instance the lorries not being able to arrive in time to set up for the next concert, this will be highlighted in red. This worksheet, when complete, will also calculate the total cost of the venues and the total number of tickets which could be sold.
Arena / This worksheet will hold details about the venues, such as how much they cost to hire and the number of tickets that will be
available.
Costs / This worksheet will hold the major costs and is used to test out the profitability of the European tour.
Revenue / This worksheet, when complete, will calculate the profit made at different ticket prices.

Twisted Pear May 2006 Page 1 of 3