how do you figure out the IRR of 260%?

actually there’s no need to use a calculator once you’ve grasped the concept.

when you see the cashflow profile, it’s an ‘unconventional’ one with sign changes throughout:

In a ‘normal’ project, you would expect a cash outflow upfront (or in the earlier years), before it pays back with positive cashflows in future years, i.e. there is only 1 sign change, meaning 1 IRR value exist.if you have unconventional cash flows (ie. there are more than 1 sign changes as per example above), you will have multiple IRR’s. Once you understand this, you can automatically discount answers B & C. The only way you could ever have no IRR would be if all the project cashflows has 1 sign only (e.g all outflows), so that eliminates answer C. Unconventional cash flows have multiple IRR’s, so that eliminates answer B, therefore the answer is A.