GCSE Business: Finance and Operations

Three of these ten questions are calculations, because that is where the marks are won and lost. A break-even output, a cash-flow closing balance and a gross profit margin each have a method that has to be followed exactly: divide the fixed costs by the contribution per unit, not by the selling price; add the opening balance before you report the closing one; take the margin as a share of revenue, not of cost, and use only the cost of sales when the question says gross. Every wrong option here is the answer a specific one of those slips produces, and each explanation sets out the working line by line and names the slip.

The rest of the set covers the judgements the longer written answers are built on. Which source of finance fits a two-million-pound factory and which fits a coffee shop that is short of cash for a fortnight. Why a sole trader's personal assets are at risk in a way a shareholder's are not. What a firm is really aiming at when it prices work barely above cost in its first year. What has changed when a factory stops inspecting finished chairs and starts making each worker check their own stage.

Every business here is invented and every figure is written into the question, so nothing depends on a case study you cannot see. Exam board specifications, past papers and mark schemes are copyright material and nothing in this set is taken from them; the questions target the subject content the boards share.

Zestly is an independent study tool. It is not affiliated with any exam board and it is not an exam centre.

• Calculate a break-even output from fixed costs, selling price and variable cost per unit
• Work out a closing cash balance from an opening balance and a month's inflows and outflows
• Calculate a gross profit margin, and say how it differs from a net profit margin
• Match a source of finance to a stated need, and explain why the alternatives are less suitable
• Explain what unlimited liability means for a sole trader and how limited liability differs
• Distinguish survival, profit maximisation, growth and social objectives, and quality control from quality assurance

A sportswear shop had revenue of £240,000 last year. The cost of the stock it sold was £150,000, and its other operating expenses were £54,000. What was its gross profit margin? — one of ten questions written for this set, alongside break-even, cash flow, sources of finance, liability and production methods.