Final answer:
X must be 3 to make the loop run 6 times, incrementing the starting value 6 to reach the end value 21.
Step-by-step explanation:
The question is asking for the value of X that will make a loop execute exactly 6 times with the initial value of a being 6 and ending at 21. This is a question involving basic arithmetic sequences and loop iterations, commonly taught in programming and mathematics.
To solve this, we need to determine the increment that will make 'a' go from 6 to 21 in exactly 6 steps. We can calculate the difference between the ending and the starting values, which is 21 - 6 = 15. Now, we have to divide this difference by the number of times we want the loop to run minus 1, because 'a' starts at 6 for the first iteration. So, 15 ÷ (6 - 1) = 15 ÷ 5 = 3. Therefore, the value of X, the increment for each iteration, is 3.