Mention two cases wherein two consecutive iteration of the simplex method would yield the same objective function value. What is the main/essential difference between these two cases?

b) What is the purpose of multiplying the artificial variable by (+M) or (-M) in the objective function when converting a linear program into the augmented form?

c) Why is it that a surplus variable may not be chosen as a basic variable in the initial basic feasible solution of a linear program?

d) Mark each of the following statements as true (T) or False (F), and correct the false ones:

1. An iteration of the simplex method would check if the current extreme point is optimal, and if not, the method then moves to an adjacent extreme point in the following iteration ( )

2. Assume the reduced cost for a non-basic variable in the optimal solution of a maximization problem is equal to 1.20. Then, decreasing the objective function coefficient of that variable by 1.5 would cause this variable to change from non-basic to basic. ( )