4. There are 130 students in grade one, 210 students in grade two and 290 students in grade three in a school, and so on in an arithmetic sequence. What’s the total amount of students in the school , if the school goes to grade 12?

Respuesta :

Remember that the formula for an arithmetic sequence is

[tex]a=dn+c[/tex]

Where a is the term you want to find, d is the common difference, n is the number of the step you want to annalyse, and c is the value of the first term of the sequence.

In grade one (step zero of the sequence) we have 130 students, so

[tex]c=130[/tex]

If we take the number of students in grade two (step one) and substract the 130 students in grade one, we can find out what the common difference is

[tex]d=210-130\rightarrow d=80[/tex]

The formula of the arithmetic sequence would be

[tex]a=80n+130[/tex]

Notice it checks out with the number of students in grade three (step 2)

[tex]a=80(2)+130\rightarrow a=290[/tex]

To know the total amount of students in the school we will have to add every single step of the sequence (from 0 to 11)

[tex]\begin{gathered} 80(0)+130+80(1)+130+80(2)+130+80(3)+130+80(4)+130+80(5)+130 \\ +80(6)+130+80(7)+130+80(8)+130+80(9)+130+80(10)+130+80(11)+130 \end{gathered}[/tex]

In other words,

[tex]80(0+1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10+11)+130(12)=6840[/tex]

So, the total amount of students in the school , if the school goes to grade 12, would be 6840 students.