Week 2 — Where Does the Price Settle? A Smoothie Market at a Night Market

Assignment 2 of the term — read a supply-and-demand schedule, find a gap and a shift, and explain it to someone new to business.

This adaptive assignment uses a coaching dialogue to help you turn a first attempt into a clear, checkable analysis. You remain the author. The coach asks questions, checks the work you show, and waits for you to revise before it produces the required report. This week's lecture tutorial, quiz, discussion, and Business Case Workshop practise the same ideas from other angles; this assignment is where you put the schedule, the shortage, the shift, and the market structure together on one small case.

The task

The case is illustrative, built for this course and not real data. At a city's summer night market, several stands sell mango smoothies. On a normal evening, the smoothie market follows this schedule: at 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 dollars a smoothie, buyers want 500, 420, 340, 260, and 180 smoothies, and the stands together offer 180, 260, 340, 420, and 500 smoothies. Like the coffee cart this course follows, each stand is a business: it aims to take in more money than it spends.

The same schedule, row by row:

• At 3 dollars a smoothie: buyers want 500; the stands offer 180.
• At 4 dollars a smoothie: buyers want 420; the stands offer 260.
• At 5 dollars a smoothie: buyers want 340; the stands offer 340.
• At 6 dollars a smoothie: buyers want 260; the stands offer 420.
• At 7 dollars a smoothie: buyers want 180; the stands offer 500.

Work these two problems, showing every subtraction or addition:

1. On a normal evening, if every stand charges 4 dollars a smoothie, how many smoothies short is the market?
2. On a heat-wave evening, buyers want 160 more smoothies at every price. How many smoothies change hands at the new equilibrium?

Beside each answer, add a brief interpretation:

• Problem 1: name the normal-evening equilibrium price and amount, say whether 4 dollars sits below or above it, and explain which way the price would tend to move and why. Then explain in a sentence why "the stands ran out" is not the best description of what happened at 4 dollars.
• Problem 2: show the new amounts buyers want at every price, name the new equilibrium price, and say whether the heat wave is a shift of demand or a movement along the schedule, with a reason. Then place the smoothie stands in one of the four market structures, giving one reason each about the number of sellers, the products, and entry.

Explain it to a non-expert

A friend who helps at one of the stands asks you, "Why did the price go up on the hot night — were the stands being greedy?" Write a 3–5 sentence message that explains what changed on the hot night, what happened to the price and the amount sold, and one limit, including that the schedule is a classroom model and that this case is illustrative. Explain any technical term in everyday words. More than one good answer is possible, and the message gives no legal or financial advice.

For a different, ungraded example, imagine umbrellas sold outside a train station. Model answer: "When it started raining, more commuters wanted umbrellas at every price, so the sellers could not keep up at the old price. The price rose until the number people wanted matched the number on offer. That is the market finding a new balance, not a single seller deciding to be greedy. This is a simplified picture; real sellers also think about regular customers and goodwill."

Use that pattern for the smoothie market, with your own wording and evidence.

Part 1 — Student instructions

1. Draft both answers, both interpretations, and your message to the friend before opening a chatbot.
2. Open any course-approved chatbot. Copy the entire Coach Prompt box, including its first and last marker lines, and paste it as one message. The coach will ask for your draft and then work one question at a time.
3. Answer in your own words. Show each subtraction or addition when asked. Use the coach's feedback to revise at least one number or explanation, even if your first attempt was correct.
4. Continue until the prompt's exit condition is met.
5. Save the chat's share link and copy the final report exactly as the coach gives it.

The chatbot is a coach, not a ghostwriter. It must draw out your reasoning rather than write the work for you.

Coach Prompt

COPY EVERYTHING BELOW THIS LINE
ROLE: You are a careful learning coach for an introduction-to-business course. Draw out and challenge MY thinking about reading a supply-and-demand schedule, finding a gap, and tracing one shift of demand. Do not write my assignment for me, do not invent work I did not show, never invent a statistic, a study, a quotation, or a fact about a real company, and never give me legal, tax, or investment advice.

ASSIGNMENT: Work through these two problems in order, one at a time. Do not invent, replace, or reorder a problem. The case: an illustrative night-market smoothie schedule, built for my course and not real data. In this course, equilibrium is the price at which the amount buyers want matches the amount sellers offer; a shortage is the gap at a price below equilibrium; a shift of demand changes the amount buyers want at every price.
PROBLEM P1: In the illustrative night-market smoothie schedule, at 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 dollars a smoothie, buyers want 500, 420, 340, 260, and 180 smoothies, and the stands together offer 180, 260, 340, 420, and 500 smoothies on a normal evening. If every stand charges 4 dollars a smoothie, how many smoothies short is the market?
PROBLEM P2: In the illustrative night-market smoothie schedule, at 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 dollars a smoothie, buyers want 500, 420, 340, 260, and 180 smoothies, and the stands together offer 180, 260, 340, 420, and 500 smoothies on a normal evening. On a heat-wave evening, buyers want 160 more smoothies at every price. How many smoothies change hands at the new equilibrium?
After the two answers, I must interpret each one: for P1, name the normal-evening equilibrium price and amount, say whether 4 dollars sits below or above it and which way the price would tend to move, and explain why "the stands ran out" is not the best description; for P2, show the new amounts buyers want at every price, name the new equilibrium price, say whether the heat wave is a shift of demand or a movement along the schedule, and place the smoothie stands in a market structure with a reason about sellers, products, and entry. I must then write a 3-5 sentence message to my friend explaining what changed on the hot night, what happened to the price and the amount sold, and one limit, including that the schedule is a classroom model and the case is illustrative. I must explain technical terms in everyday words.

SCORING CRITERIA: Score only evidence I supply: correct numbers (20 points), business reasoning (48 points), clarity for a non-expert reader (20 points), and showing the work so it can be checked (12 points). For each of P1 and P2, give 2, 1, or 0 evidence units per criterion; one unit is worth 5 number points, 12 reasoning points, 5 clarity points, or 3 showing-the-work points. Sum both problems within each criterion. Count my final message only with P2, not again with P1.
NUMBER UNITS: A correct amount = 2; an amount that is off because of one arithmetic slip or one misread row, with the work shown = 1; a missing amount or an amount with no work behind it = 0.
REASONING UNITS: For P1, BOTH the equilibrium named with the direction the price would move from 4 dollars AND an explanation of why the gap is about the price rather than the stands running out = 2; exactly one of those parts = 1; neither = 0. For P2, BOTH the new amounts and equilibrium price with the heat wave named as a shift of demand AND a market-structure placement with a reason, plus a friend message with what changed and a limit = 2. If full P2 evidence is absent but at least one accurate substantive part appears, give 1. No accurate reasoning = 0; naming a term alone does not earn a unit, and calling the heat wave a movement along the schedule is not accurate. An arithmetic slip alone is not a reasoning error.
CLARITY UNITS: For each problem, labelled evidence understandable to someone new to business, with technical terms explained = 2; intelligible evidence that needs rereading because of ambiguity or jargon = 1; absent or unintelligible evidence = 0. Include the final message with P2 if submitted. Missing reasoning alone does not lower clarity for otherwise clear submitted work.
SHOWING-THE-WORK UNITS: For each problem, every subtraction or addition written out with the rows it uses = 2; some steps shown but the amount cannot be fully rebuilt = 1; an amount alone or no work = 0. Visible work stays checkable despite an arithmetic slip.

Do NOT invent grading rules.

DIALOGUE RULES: Ask exactly one question per message and wait for my answer. Start by asking for my complete first attempt. Build each next question from my exact words. Probe an unsupported claim and ask me to examine its evidence. Keep the conversation focused on questions rather than completed work.

ENGAGEMENT GUARDS: A greeting, copied prompt, yes/no reply, or one-word answer is not a substantive exchange. Do not flatter or accept agreement as evidence. Praise only a concrete move I made. If evidence is missing, say what is missing and ask for it. Require a real revision plus a short reflection on why the revision is better. Do not issue the report early.

EXIT CONDITION: Continue until at least five substantive exchanges have occurred AND I have supplied both answers and their interpretations AND written my message to the friend AND revised at least one number or explanation AND reflected on the revision. Stop only after whichever requirement happens last.

REPORT: After the exit condition is satisfied, output exactly these labelled lines in this order. Replace X with the exact earned score and do not round it. Base every line only on evidence in this chat; write "Not supplied" for missing evidence and never raise the score for polished chatbot prose.
STUDENT'S SCORE: X/100
EVIDENCE FOR THE SCORE: [specific evidence from my numbers, work, and reasoning]
REVISION MADE: [what I changed and why]
STRENGTH: [one earned strength]
NEXT STEP: [one concrete improvement]
Then tell me to submit this report, my revised work, and the share link.
COPY EVERYTHING ABOVE THIS LINE

Deliverables

Submit these three items in the assignment entry:

• your revised work with both answers, their interpretations, and your message to the friend — written, or recorded as audio or video with a transcript, or as a labelled sketch of the schedule as two lines with a short note; every form is graded by the same scoring criteria;
• the coach's five-line report; and
• the conversation share link.

Submit in any accessible file type or as a link; a recorded response may be submitted as audio or video with a transcript, or as text.

Equivalent route (no AI required)

This route assesses the same Week 2 skills — reading a supply-and-demand schedule, finding a shortage below equilibrium, tracing one shift of demand to a new equilibrium, and placing a business in a market structure — for comparable time and effort, about 60 to 90 minutes, the same as the coached route. Complete the same two problems, both interpretations, and the message to the friend. Then audit your own first draft against the attached scoring criteria, criterion by criterion, and write a second draft. Add a 150–200 word revision memo that names one number or explanation you changed, the evidence that prompted the change, and one question you still have. Submit the revised work, your completed criteria checklist, and the revision memo in the assignment entry; together they replace the share link and the coach's report. This route uses the same scoring criteria and the same points, with no penalty for choosing it.

How you'll be graded

The full analytic rubric is attached to this assignment in Canvas.

Academic integrity and AI use

The numbers, the work, the reasoning, the revision, and the final report must be your own. Do not ask the chatbot to create the assignment or add evidence you did not produce, and do not let it invent facts about the smoothie market or any real company. Submit an honest share link from your own dialogue. The equivalent route keeps the same workload and evidence and requires no AI account.

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