Question

tom had a platter of chocolate wafers. he ate 5 of them and then gave his brother 3 he then moved on to his baseball team of 8 members. the first player to arrive took 1, the 2nd player took 3, and the third player took 5 and so on. when the last player took his, the platter was empty. How many chocolate wafers did tom start with?

Answer 1

Tom started with total 72 chocolate wafers.

Step-by-step explanation

The number of chocolate wafers taken by 8 members of the baseball team are in the sequence :
`1, 3,5,7,9,11,13,15`

The above sequence is arithmetic sequence with first term(a₁)= 1 and common difference (d) = 2

Formula for Sum of first
`n` terms in arithmetic sequence is....

`S_(n)= (n)/(2)[2a_(1)+(n-1)d]`

So, the Sum of 8 terms in that sequence....

`S_(8)= (8)/(2)[2(1)+(8-1)(2)]\\ \\ S_(8)= 4[2+7(2)]\\ \\ S_(8)=4(2+14)\\ \\ S_(8)=4(16)=64`

That means, the total number of chocolate wafers taken by the baseball team members is 64. Tom ate 5 and then gave his brother 3 chocolate wafers at first.

So, the total number of chocolate wafers at starting
`=64+5+3=72`