Final answer:
The assignment's focus is on the 'correlation of returns', requiring the analysis of investments, calculation of risks, expected and actual rates of returns, and utilizing statistical measures to understand these relationships.
Step-by-step explanation:
Understanding the Assignment's Focus
Based on the provided details, the assignment asks the student to engage with several aspects of financial investment analysis. This includes evaluating the expected rate of return, assessing the risk associated with different investment choices, and discussing the correlation between risk and actual returns. Specific tasks such as calculating the safest and riskiest investments, finding correlation coefficients, and analyzing the tradeoffs between return and risk suggest the assignment's focus is on understanding the dynamic nature of investment fields, particularly the correlation of returns and the application of various statistical measures to assess these relationships.
The student is likely to encounter concepts such as default risk, interest rate risk, and how they impact the actual rate of return. The identification of independent and dependent variables and the construction of scatter plots imply a significant statistical component to the assignment. Thus, the focus of the assignment appears to be on b. Correlation of returns, as it encompasses both the statistical analysis and knowledge of investment concepts needed to complete the questions.