Seven years ago, douglas purchased a $204,000 home with a 30-year
mortgage at 4.5%. having recently lost his job, he can no longer afford to
make his mortgage payments. if he currently owes $177,533.62 and his
lender offered to extend the loan by 7 years at 4.25%, what will be his new
mortgage payment?

is there more to this question?

there is only one way to arrange all the eight relative to each other because they are not distinct. we have

now there are nine places to place an (and not more than one in one place).   because we have four symbols, we need to choose four of these nine places to insert an . order does not matter because the are not distinct.

thus there are 1 · c(9,4) ways, or, if we calculate it,

thus there are 126 ways to form such "words."