C1 Chapter 6 Arithmetic

Series
Dr J Frost
(jfrost@tiffin.kingston.sch.uk)

Last modified: 7th October 2013

Types of sequences
?
common
difference
+ + + This is a:
3 3 3

2, 5, 8, 11, 14, Arithmetic

?
Series
?
common
ratio

3, 6, 12, 24, ?
Geometric
Series
48, This is the Fibonacci
Sequence. The terms follow
a recurrence ?
1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, relation
because each term can be
The fundamentals of sequences
If is the current term, how
The th?term. could we describe:

The previous term: ?

The ? The term before that:?
position.

? ? Thus the following

? sequence:

Could be described using:

?
Term-to-term and position-to-term

What is the formula for the th term based on:

the position of the term :

?
the previous term:

?
 th
term of an arithmetic sequence

We often use to denote the first term. Recall that is the
difference between terms, and is the position of the term were
interested in.

1st Term 2nd Term 3rd Term ... term

th

? ? ? ... ?

 th
term of an arithmetic sequence
Find the requested term of the following sequences.

100th ? ? ?
term ?

50th term ? ? ?
?

20th term ? ? ?
?

Give that the 3rd term of an arithmetic series is 20 and the 7th
term is 12. Find
?
a) The first term. ?
b) The 20th term.
Exercises
1
The first term of an arithmetic sequence is 14. If the fourth term is
32, find the common difference.
?
2 Given that the 3rd term of an arithmetic series is 30 and the 10th
term is 9, find and .
?
3 In an arithmetic series the 20th term is 14 and the 40th term is -6.
Find the 10th term.
?
4 For which values of would the expression and form the first
three terms of an arithmetic series.

?
The number of terms
Bro Tip: If youre trying to work out the number of terms in a
sequence, you can do whatever you like to the terms in the sequence
until you get to , after which the number of terms becomes obvious.

Add or subtract
such that the

? numbers are now
multiples of the
common
difference.

Then divide.
?
So there are 56 terms.
The number of terms
How many terms? (work out in your
head!)

1 5, 10, 15, 20, , 200 ?
2 2, 5, 8, 11, 14, , 449 ?
3 9, 19, 29, 39, , 1999 ?
4 11, 16, 21, 26, , 151 ?
5 5, 9, 13, 17, , 409 ?

Sum of the first terms of a sequence.
th
term
Find the sum of the first 30 terms of the following arithmetic
sequences
1 ?
2 ?
3 ?
sum of first terms
?
Lets prove it!
Bro
Tips: Explicitly write
out . Youre less likely to
plug in numbers wrong into
the formula.
Make sure you write so you
make clear to yourself (and
the examiner) that youre
finding the sum of the first
terms, not the th term.

Sum of the first terms of a sequence.

Find the greatest number of terms for the sum of to exceed 2000.

So 28 terms needed.

?
Exam Question
Edexcel C1 Jan 2012

?
Exam Question
Exercise 6F
Q1a, c, e, g
Q2a, c
Q5, Q6, 8, 10

Using
What do these summations mean?

?
This is commonly
seen in exams.

?

Using

Bro Tip: As
always, start
by explicitly
writing out
your and
values.
?

? ?
More on recurrence relations
There will occasionally be two series questions, one on nth term/sum of
n terms, and the other on recurrence relations. Note that the sequence
may not be arithmetic.
Edexcel C1 May 2013 How would you
(Retracted) say this in
words?

?

?

?

?
More on recurrence relations
Edexcel C1 Jan
2012

?
?