Harrison and Sherrie are making decisions on their bank accounts. Harrison wants to put more money in as a principle amount because the more you start with, the more interest you will gain. Sherrie wants to put the original money in an account with a higher interest rate. Explain which method will result in more money.

Question

anonymous · Answer

The question is not worded very well and is not multiple choice. If somone could help me out that would be great.

mathmale · Answer

I don't think the question is worded very clearly either.  Also nothing is said about the initial principal amounts or the interest rates.

One way to compare the two situations would be to choose (arbitrarily) an amount of money invested by Harrison (H) and an amount invested by Sherrie (S), along with (arbitrary) interest rates.  Then Harrison would end up with y=Hrt dollars (or whatever) and Sherrie with y=Srt dollars.  For example:  if Harrison is satisfied with 4% interest but Sherrie wants 6% interest then Harrison will end up wth H(0.04)(t) dollars after t years and Sherrie will end up with S(0.06)(t) dollars after t years.  I don't have a "pat" answer for you, because of the number of assumptions you'd have to make to come up with a reasonable "solution" to this problem.

anonymous · Answer

Yeah I'm going to talk to my teacher about it and see if he change the question on future tests, and what he would consider a correct answer. Until then I just have to do what you did and  assign variables and make up different rates for them.

mathmale · Answer

That sounds good!  A measured and reasonable approach.  Glad you plan to talk with your teacher.

anonymous · Answer

The tests still havent changed :P Whats worse, is FLVS is different, and I submitted this test a few days later, and it didnt register when it should. So now I am stuck redoing this stupid test(I am so sick of this site)