Okay, so what we're looking at here is exponentials and logarithms.
note; my first assumption is that Semiannual means "one half year" or "two times a year", so in question 1. we're really looking at 8*2 = 16 payouts.
For question 1 (as an example):
firstly, normalise the repay so you know how much (as a factor) you've gained:
\( {64010 \over 35000} = 1.82885714....\)
This makes our maths a lot easier.
Next thing we want to know, is what percentage increase (interest rate) do we want to compound every 6 months, so that after 8 years (or 16 iterations) we get to 1.82885714...
The "compound" part basically means that every time you gain interest, next time you'll be getting interest on your new balance:
5% interest, 3 years: 1 * 1.05 = 1.05 (one year) , 1.05 * 1.05 = 1.1025 (second year), 1.1025 * 1.05 = 1.157625 (third year) etc...
*Right, nearly at the end now!*
In the 5% interest example above, we knew what percentage we had, and how long we are compounding the interest for, and we found the result after 3 years.
However, for question 1, we don't know the interest, but we do know the end result = 1.82885714.
Your ultimate formula is
\(( 1 + interest ) ^ {iterations} =end value\)
converted to:
\({endvalue} ^ {1 \over {iterations} } = (1 + interest)\)
(I'm assuming you've met "powers" before, i.e. 2^2 = 4, 2 ^ 3 = 8, 3 ^ 5 = 243 etc).
so your interest for Q1 is:
\(1.828857^{1 \over 16} = 1.03845\)
interest = 3.845%