What does it mean to find the amount in a saving account after the given time?

Answer 1

A savings account is not just a place to store money, like stuffing it in your

pillow or burying it in a jar. When you put your money into a savings account,

the bank is allowed to use it, like to loan to other people.

So what you're really doing is loaning your money to the bank, and when you

do that, the bank pays you for the use of your money, just like they would if

they borrowed your car and used it. The more of your money you loan the bank,

the more they pay you. And the longer you let them use it, the more they pay you.

Just for an example, if you put $100 in a bank savings account and leave it there

for a year, the bank will pay you something like maybe $2 or $3 for letting them

use your $100 for a year. How they pay it to you is: They put it into your savings

account. So if you go back to the bank after a year to take your $100 out of the

account, you'll find that there's $102 or $103 in it now.

That's what those arithmetic questions are talking about. The problem tells you

how much you put into the account, how long you left it there, and how much

the bank pays you to let them use $100 of your money for 1 year. (That's called

"interest".) With that information, you're asked to figure out how much is in the

account when you go to get your money after that number of years.