Take into account that the general expression for the nth term of a arithmetic sequence is given by:
where, for this case:
an: 31st term = 496
n = 31
d: common difference of the sequence = 16
a1 = first term = ?
Solve the previous equation for a1, replace the values of the parameters and simplify:
Then, the nth term can be written as follow:
and the second term is given by (n = 2):
Hence, the second term is 16