Answer:
Explanation:
Let's start by finding the common difference of this arithmetic sequence.
The change from
to
is -45 because it decreased 45.
is 9 terms away from
.
If we divide the change by the difference in n, then we can find the difference between each term, or the common difference.
-45/9 = -5, so the common difference is -5.
Now, we want to find
.
We can do this using the common difference. Subtracting the common difference from
six times should tell us what
is, so let's do that.
= 71 - (-5) - (-5) - (-5) - (-5) - (-5) - (-5)
A reminder, subtracting a negative is basically the same as adding it.
= 71 + 5 + 5 + 5 + 5 + 5 + 5
= 101
With the common difference and
, we now have all the parts we need to write a rule for the nth term of this sequence.
The formula for the nth term of a sequence is
, with
being the nth term, a being
, and d being the common difference.
We can just substitute the common difference and a to get our formula.