Answers Worksheet
Problem solving with non-linear relationships
Task A: Problem solving with geometric sequences
1) Passing information is another thing which can form a geometric sequence. The
bus is going to be late back from a school trip. One pupil phones their parent. The
parent phones 5 other parents. Each of those parents phone 5 other parents. Assume
it takes 5 minutes to make a phone call.
a) How many people would know after 40 mins?
Time People 626 people would know if the growth continued at the above
10 mins 5 rate.
20 mins 25 ×5
b) Why might this not be realistic?
30 mins 125 ×5
×5 Some parents might ring the same people. Some parents
40 mins 625 + 1
might not ring anyone.
It might take some parents longer than 10 minutes to ring 5 parents.
c) How many people would know
Time People Time People after 2 hours?
10 mins 5 10 mins 5
20 mins 25 ≈ 200 000 000
20 mins 52
people
30 mins 125 30 mins 53
40 mins 625 40 mins 54
50 mins 3125 d) Why might this not be realistic?
50 mins 55
60 mins 15 625 60 mins 56 There will not be that many parents to tell.
70 mins 78 125 120 mins 512
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Answers Problem solving with non-linear relationships Worksheet
Task B: Adding sequences
1) In each question, the sequences were created by adding the terms of two of the
sequences given below. Work out which two sequences were added in each question.
A 1, 2, 4, 8, 16 … B 4, 12, 36, 108, … C 4, 9, 14, 19, … D 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 …
E 4, 7, 12, 19, … F 1, 6, 16, 31, 51, … G 4, 6, 6, 4, 0 … H 1, 8, 27, 64, …
a) 5, 12, 19, 26, 33, … C + D d) 2, 9, 21, 38, 60, … D + F g) 5, 14, 40, 127, 356, … A + B
b) 5, 11, 18, 27, 40, … A + C e) 2, 5, 9, 15, 25, … A + D h) 8, 15, 20, 23, 24, … C + G
c) 5, 13, 28, 50, 79, … E + F f) 2, 11, 32, 71, 134, … D + H i) 8, 13, 18, 23, 28, … E + G
2) What is the nth term rule for sequence a). How does that relate to the two sequences
you have chosen for your answer to a)?
7n − 2. The nth term rules for C and D are 5n − 1 and 2n − 1.
Adding the nth terms together: 5n−1 + 2n − 1 = 7n − 2.
3) By using the examples previously and any of your own examples, investigate the
following questions and write a sentence about any patterns you have noticed.
a) What happens when you add two geometric sequences together?
E.g. You do not get another geometric sequence. There is no clear arithmetic or geometric pattern in
the differences or ratios between terms.
b) What happens when you add two quadratic sequences together?
(square and triangle numbers are examples of quadratic sequences)
E.g. Often you get another quadratic sequence with the common second difference of the new
sequence equal to the sum of the second differences of the original sequences. If the second
differences of two sequences are the additive inverses of each other it is possible to add two
quadratic sequences to get a linear sequence- Question 1i) is an example of this.
c) What happens when you add a linear sequence to a geometric sequence?
E.g. The resulting sequences are neither arithmetic or geometric. There seems to be geometric
relationships in the second differences between terms.
d) What happens when you add a linear sequence to a quadratic sequence?
E.g. You will get a quadratic sequence. If you knew the nth term rules, adding them together would
give you the new nth term rule.
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