Another new school year begins...

For you, that means new classes. For us, it means making College-Cram totally free for everyone. You've responded overwhelmingly and positively over the past month, so we're going to keep doing what we can to help you -- cranking out more Cramlets™ and answering your questions. You can help too by sending us more questions and by spreading the word about College-Cram. Got a web page on Facebook or MySpace? Add a link to us!

This month we have an article written for us by one of our student-subscribers. She's been a longtime friend to Professor Cram, and her insights are particularly appropriate for this time of the year.

The bell has rung, and the seats are filling up. It's time for all of us to get back to work. Enjoy!

(Submitted by a fellow student)

After high school, my expectations towards college were tempered with the stereotypes shown on television and movies. After my first week there, though, I came to recognize a startling number of differences -- college is completely different from high school.

Dear Professor Cram:

I am doing my microeconomics paper at present, and am working on this question: "Assuming the supply and demand curves for cars given below, calculate the deadweight loss that results from a tax of $100 per car collected by the sellers. I am struggling to graph this, can you help please?

Anne M., New Zealand

Thank you for using College-Cram.com and thank you for your excellent question about deadweight loss.

Deadweight loss is an economic inefficiency - in this case introduced by a tax on a product. The tax raises the price to the buyer but not for the seller, resulting in equilibrium for supply and demand moving from the point of efficiency.

Dear Professor Cram:

Jerry was 1/3 as young as his grandfather 15 years ago. If the sum of their ages is 110, how old is Jerry's grandfather? What is the easiest way to calculate this? Thanks

Kaye B, Riverdale

Thanks for your word-problem question, Kaye. This is a system of linear equations problem, which we'll solve using the Substitution Method. Let's review the facts first:

Dear Professor Cram:

Can you explain to me the concept of ratio analysis and the limitations of ratio analysis? Thanks!

Ken S., Hong Kong

Thanks for your question, Ken. In Finance, ratio analysis is generally used to compare the performance or position of a single company with other companies or with an industry.