Question

If the sum of four consecutive numbers is 1998, what is the third one?

Answer 1

`\huge\boxed{500}`

Explanation:

In order to solve this, we have to note that consecutive numbers are numbers that are one more than the last.

If our first number is represented as
`n`, then we know that the next number will be
`n+1`, the next will be
`n+2`, and so on.

Since we want 4 numbers, we can create the equation:
`n + (n+1) + (n+2) + (n+3) = 1998`

Now we want to solve for
`n`. It's important to note that
`n` is our first number.

Combine like terms:

`4n+6=1998`

Subtract 6 from both sides:

`4n=1992`

Divide both sides by 4:

`n = 498`

We want the third number in the set of these four numbers. Looking back to our equation (
`n + (n+1) + (n+2) + (n+3) = 1998`) we can see that the third term here is
`n+2`

`498+2=500`

Hope this helped!