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"An employee receives a bonus at the end of each quarter based on her salary for the year. If she earns $1,800$ per month, and her bonus is $3.5$% of her yearly salary, her bonus for the previous quarter is...?"

Book says answer $756$. They get this by $12 \times 1800 = 21600$. Then $21600 \times 0.035 = 756$.

I don't understand the answer. It's my understanding that since her bonus for the year is $756$ shouldn't you divide $756$ by $4$ since the question asks for the bonus amount for the quarter?

Claude Leibovici
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Jessica M.
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    May be her bonus of 3.5% of her yearly salary is her quarterly bonus. If it said the her yearly bonus is 3.5% of her yearly salary, then what you say is right. In this context it is a little bit ambiguous and I think you should believe that the 3.5% is her quarterly bonus. – Satish Ramanathan Jul 07 '14 at 07:48
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    "receives a bonus at the end of each quarter" (...) "her bonus is 3.5% of her yearly salary" - so what is meant is that she gets each quarter a bonus based on her annual salary. Could have been expressed clearer by whoever wrote this question. – gnometorule Jul 07 '14 at 07:48

2 Answers2

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When the question refers to her bonus it means her quarterly bonus, so their reasoning is correct. Her yearly bonus would be 14% of her salary paid in four installments of 756.

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1800 per month means, 1800*12=21600 per year.

Now, 3.5% of 21600= 756.

If I try to align the answer that you have, I believe that the lady receives 756 towards bonus every quarter. Otherwise, the quarterly bonus will be 756/4=189. The question seems unclear and you need to cross check once again.

MonK
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  • " I believe that the lady receives 756 towards bonus every quarter." Well, there's your mistake. You are assuming that the lady receives the same bonus every quarter. The way I read the problem, her bonus is recalculated every quarter, based on her salary for that quarter. It is not calculated for a year, then that annual bonus divided by 4 to get the quarterly bonus as you seem to believe. – user247327 May 16 '16 at 16:07