Having read some old arithmetic texts from around this era, I would make a sizable bet you are to assume that 3 mos is exactly 1/3 of a year and 3 days is exactly 1/10 of a month and therefore 1/120 of a year so you have interest for 3 41/120 years. Furthermore you are to assume simple interest. So total interest is .08*(3 41/120)* principle. However, I’m not sure of the wording on the problem that 50.30 is the principle and you’re to find interest or if it’s the interest and you’re to find principle.
Really? Not 1/4 of a year? Why would they want you to assume 3 mos is 1/3? That makes little sense to me.
That had to be a typo. Fiscal Quarters are standard throughout business.
I vaguely recall from a business math class that there used to be quite a few defaults used. Back when interest and other things were hand calculated they just weren’t that anal about it. A month was 30 days. 4 months made a quarter of a year and so forth.
I can’t recall that stuff now. That was a class 20 years ago and I never really used that math again. I do remember spending several weeks on loan calculations. Present value, future value etc. All of it we did by hand back then except for the basic math (used a plain calculator, Not a fancy business calculator).
You mean 3 months. 3 months = 1/4 year. 4 months = 1/3 year.
Whoops.
right. My boss would be irked if I did the quarterly database reports and backups every four months. It’s every three months.
Sorry yes. 3 months = exactly 1/4 year. Interest rate calculations then (and sometimes still now) assume that every month is exactly 30 days (even February). This is known as the 30/260 convention.
See Day count convention - Wikipedia for more information than you could probably want.