Ursula took out an unsubsidized stafford loan to pay for her first of her four years at college. the loan had a principal of $6,400, an interest rate of 6.9% compounded monthly. after college, ursula started making monthly payments over a 10 year period on her loan. what percentage of the total cost of the loan is the finance charge?
a.
45.25%
b.
27.91%
c.
43.50%
d.
82.66%

let's cover over the formula of the vertex:

y = a(x – h)^2 + k

in this formula, (h,k) are the vertex, always remember that the positive or negative value of the vertex is based on the sign it has.

for example, if the vertex is -3,-6 then both the x and y value would have the positive sign attached to it and if it were a positive x and y value, then a negative sign would be attached to it.

with that being said, for our problem the x value is a positive one so we are looking for a number with a negative sign next to it, in this case the first and second choice.

however, for the first answer choice it isn't quite part of the formula so we know that the answer choice correctly displays the x value.

to confirm, we can see if the -1 fits correctly with the second answer choice, and as mentioned above a negative number will have a positive sign attached to it. so, for our problem we can see that -1 has been changed to +1, so we can confirm that the second answer choice is correct.

hence, our final answer is y=(x - 1)^2 + 1

x is the total time in minutes for the free response

you are given number of questions as 15 - m and time per item as 8 minutes

to find x multiply the two givens together:

x = 8 * (15-m) = 8(15-m)