Answer:
44 votes.
Step-by-step explanation:
We have been given that Jessica is voting for dancers in a contest. She votes for 5 times for the first contestant 2nd contestant 9 times and the third contestant 13 times.
We can see that Jessica votes to next contestant 4 votes more than previous contestant, so number of votes cast by Jessica to contestants form an arithmetic sequence as: 5, 9, 13,..
Since the common difference of our sequence is 4, so Jessica will cast
votes to 4th contestant.
We will use arithmetic sequence sum formula to solve our problem.
, where,
= Sum of first n terms of sequence.
n = Number of terms of the sequence,
= First term of sequence,
= nth term of sequence.
Upon substituting our given values in above formula we will get,
![S_(4)=(n)/(2)* (a_1+a_4)](https://img.qammunity.org/2020/formulas/mathematics/high-school/lq0ar2v42tb27zbnui8jil8cluze7518wh.png)
![S_(4)=(4)/(2)* (5+17)](https://img.qammunity.org/2020/formulas/mathematics/high-school/7gduvmaumbin5b9oo1cxvtkp46nnqzcri3.png)
![S_(4)=2* (22)](https://img.qammunity.org/2020/formulas/mathematics/high-school/k1b0h6cq03aqsfdgf1v1lctg4fzw3a49a8.png)
![S_(4)=44](https://img.qammunity.org/2020/formulas/mathematics/high-school/3zvqynxg9tngaxmz27plkilu2yrbnkrgmx.png)
Therefore, Jessica will cast 44 votes the first four contestants.