2020 SAJC JC1 H2 Mathematics

Tutorial 3: Arithmetic & Geometric Progression

The twelfth term of an arithmetic progression is 52 and the sum to the first eighteen terms
is 756. If the nth term of the progression is more than 2000, find the least possible value
of n.

[Ans: 500]

2. [N2007/P1/Q10]
A geometric series has common ratio r , and an arithmetic series has first term a and
common difference d , where a and d are non-zero. The first three terms of the geometric
series are equal to the first, fourth and sixth terms respectively of the arithmetic series.

(i) Show that 3r 2  5 r  2  0

3. [N81/P1/Q3b Modified]
The first two terms of a geometric progression are 3 and -2. Write down an expression for
the sum to n terms and evaluate the sum to infinity of this progression.

(i) Find the least value of n for the sum to n terms to be within 2% of the sum to infinity.
(ii) Find the set of values of n for the sum to n terms to be within  0.5 of the value of
the sum to infinity.
(ii) Find the smallest value of n for which the sum to n terms is within 10 3 of the sum
to infinity.

[Ans:

Sn 

9 1  ( 23 )n 9
, S  , (i)Least n  10, (ii) n   : n  4 , (iii) smallest n  19 ]
5 5

4. [N2011/P1/Q8]
A company is drilling for oil. Using machine A, the depth drilled on the first day is 256
metres. On each subsequent day, the depth drilled is 7 metres less than the previous day.
Drilling continues daily up to and including the day when a depth of less than 10 metres
is drilled. What depth is drilled on the 10th day, what is the total depth when drilling is
completed?
Using machine B, the depth drilled on the first day is also 256 metres. On each subsequent
8
day, the depth drilled is of the depth on the previous day. How many days does it take
9
for the depth drilled to exceed 99% of the theoretical maximum total depth?
[Ans [Ans : (i) 193 m ; 4810m (ii) 40 days]

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5. [N2009/P1/Q8]
Two musical instruments, A and B , consist of metal bars of decreasing lengths.
(i) The first bar of instrument A has length 20 cm and the lengths of the bars form a
geometric progression. The 25th bar has length 5 cm . Show that the total lengths
of all the bars must be less than 357 cm , no matter how many bars there are.
Instrument B consists of only 25 bars which are identical to the first 25 bars of
instrument A .
(ii) Find the total length, L cm , of all the bars of instrument B and the length of the
13th bar.
(iii) Unfortunately the manufacturer misunderstands the instructions and constructs
instrument B wrongly, so that the lengths of the bars are in arithmetic progression
with common difference d cm . If the total length of the 25 bars is still L cm and
the length of the 25th bar is still 5 cm , find the value of d cm and the length of the
longest bar.
[Ans: (ii) L = 272, T13  10 , (iii) d  0.491, 16.8]

6. [2017/YJC/Prelim/P1/Q8]
Emily has 1016 toy bricks.
(i) Emily wishes to build a brick structure with one brick in the first row, two bricks
in the second row, three bricks in the third row and so on. What is the maximum
number of rows that she can build and how many bricks will be left unused?
(ii) Emily keeps all her 1016 bricks in  2k  1 bags of different sizes. She packs m
bricks into the smallest bag. For each subsequent bag, she packs double the
number of bricks she packs in the previous bag. Given that she has 64 bricks in the
kth bag, find the value of m and the number of bags.
[Ans: (i) 44 rows, 26 bricks left; (ii) m  8, no. of bags  7 ]

7. [N2008/P1/Q10 Modified]
(i) A student saves $10 on 1 January 2009. On the first day of each subsequent month
she saves $3 more than in the previous month, so that she saves $13 on 1 February
2009, $16 on 1 March 2009, and so on. On what date will she first saved over $2000
in total?
(ii) A second student puts $10 on 1 January 2009 into a bank account which pays
compound interest at a rate of 2% per month on the last day of each month. She
puts a further $10 into the account on the first day of each subsequent month.
(a) How much compound interest has her original $10 earned at the end of 2
years?
(b) How much in total is in the account at the end of 2 years?
(c) After how many complete months will the total in the account first exceed
$2000?
(d) The student wants the value of her account to be $2000 at the end of 3 years.
What interest rate per month, applied from January 2009, would achieve
this?

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[Ans: (i) 1 Oct 2011, (ii)(a) $6.08 , (b) $310.30 , (c) 81, (d) 7.96%.]

8. Timo drops a ball vertically onto a hard surface and measures the height reached by the
ball after each successive bounce. She drops the ball from an initial height of 200 cm
8
and she estimates that the height the ball reaches after each bounce is of the height
9
reached by the previous bounce.
(i) Find the total distance that the ball has travelled when it reaches the highest point
after the fourth bounce. Give your answer correct to the nearest centimetre.
(ii) The ball is considered to have stopped bouncing when the next bounce results in
the height the ball reaches being less than 0.01 cm. Find how many bounces the
ball has made and the total distance that the ball has travelled in this case. Give
your answer correct to the nearest centimetre.
[Ans: (i) 1277cm, (ii) 84 bounces, 3400cm]

9. [N2014/P2/Q3]
In a training exercise, athletes run from a starting point O to and from a series of
points, A1 , A2 , A3 ,..., increasingly far away in a straight line. In the exercise, athletes
start at O and run stage 1 from O to A1 and back to O, then stage 2 from O to A2 and
back to O, and so on.

O 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4
m m m m m m m m
Fig. 1
In Version 1 of the exercise, the distances between adjacent points are all 4 m
(see Fig. 1).
(a) Find the distance run by an athlete who completes the first 10 stages of Version
1 of the exercise.
(b) Write down an expression for the distance run by an athlete who completes n
stages of Version 1. Hence find the least number of stages that the athlete needs
to complete to run at least 5 km.
(ii)

O 4m A1 4m A2 8m A3 16m A4

Fig. 2
In Version 2 of the exercise, the distances between the points are such that
OA1  4m , A1 A2  4m , A2 A3  8m and An An1  2 An1 An (see Fig. 2). Write down an
expression for the distance run by an athlete who completes n stages of Version 2. Hence
find the distance from O, and the direction of travel, of the athlete after he has run exactly
10 km using Version 2.

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[Ans: (ia) 440m, (ib) 35 (ii) 8  2 n  1 ; 1816m away from O and running away
from O towards A11 ]

Mastery Questions
1. [RIJC/2019/Prelim/P2/Q4]
(a) The non-zero numbers a, b and c are the first, third and fifth terms of an arithmetic series
respectively.
(i) Write down an expression for b in terms of a and c. [1]
(ii) Write down an expression for the common difference, d, of this arithmetic series
in terms of a and b. [1]
(iii) Hence show that the sum of the first ten terms can be expressed as

5
 9c  a  . [2]
4
(iv) If a, b and c are also the fourth, third and first terms, respectively of a geometric
series, find the common ratio of this series in terms of a and b and hence show
that
(2b  a) a2  b3 . [2]
n 1
(b) 
The nth term of a geometric series is 2sin 2   .
(i) Find all the values of , where 0    2 , such that the series is
convergent. [4]
(ii) For the values of  found in part (i), find the sum to infinity, simplifying your
answer to a form involving a single trigonometrical function. [2]
ac ba a  3
[Ans: (a)(i) b  (ii) d = (iv) r  ; (b)(i) 0    or     or
2 2 b 4 4
5 7
   or    2 . (ii) sec 2 ]
4 4

2. [N2003/P2/Q4]
The first, second and fourth term of a convergent geometric progression are consecutive terms
of an arithmetic progression. Prove that the common ratio of the geometric progression is
 1 5
.
2
The first term of the geometric progression is positive. Show that the sum of the first 5 terms
of this progression is greater than nine tenths of the sum of infinity.

3. [IJC/2017/Prelim/P2/Q4]
A farmer owns a plot of farmland. To prepare for wheat planting, the farmer has to plough the
farmland before sowing wheat seeds. At the start of the first week, 300 m 2 of the farmland is
ploughed. The farmer ploughs another 100 m 2 of the farmland at the beginning of each
subsequent week. To sow wheat seeds, the farmer is considering two different options.
(a) In the first option, the farmer sows wheat seeds on 60% of the unsown ploughed land
at the end of each week.
(i) Find the area of unsown ploughed land at the end of the second week.
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(ii) Show that the area of unsown ploughed land at the end of the nth week is given
by
 
 0.4n  300   k 1  0.4n 1  m 2 ,
 
where k is an exact constant to be determined.
(iii) Find the number of complete weeks required for the area of unsown ploughed
land to first fall below 70 m2 .
(b) In the second option, the farmer sows 80 m2 of the unsown ploughed land at the end of
the first week. At the end of each subsequent week, he sows 20 m2 of the unsown
ploughed land more than in the previous week. This means that the area of sown
ploughed land is 100 m 2 in the second week, 120 m 2 in the third week, and so on.
(i) Find, in terms of n, the area of unsown ploughed land at the end of the nth week.
(ii) Find the number of complete weeks required for the farmer to finish sowing all
the ploughed farmland in this option. Deduce the area of ploughed land to be sown
in the final week.
200
[Ans: (a)(i) 88 m2 (ii) k  (iii) 5; (b)(i) 10n2  30n  200 (ii) 7, 120 m2]
3

4. [JJC/2017/Prelim/P1/Q4]
A fund is started at $6000 and compound interest of 3% is added to the fund at the end of each
year. If withdrawals of $k are made at the beginning of each of the subsequent years, show that
the amount in the fund at the beginning of the (n +1)th year is
100 
$ (180  k )(1.03) n  k  .
3  
(i) It is given that k = 400. At the beginning of which year, for the first time, will the amount
in the fund be less than $1000?
(ii) If the fund is fully withdrawn at the beginning of sixteenth year, find the least value of
k to the nearest integer.
[Ans: (i) 19th year (ii) least k = 503]

5. [HCI/2019/Prelim/P1/Q9]
A company produces festive decorative Light Emitting Diode (LED) string lights, where micro
LEDs are placed at intervals along a thin wire. In a particular design, the first LED (LED 1) is
placed on one end of a wire with the second LED (LED 2) placed at a distance of d cm from
LED 1, and each subsequent LED is placed at a distance 54 times the preceding distance as
shown.
LED 1 LED 2 LED 3
wire
cm
cm

(i) If the distance between LED 8 and LED 9 is 56.2 cm, find the value of d correct to 1
decimal place.

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(ii) Find the theoretical maximum length of the wire, giving your answer in centimetres
correct to 1 decimal place.
The LEDs consisting of three colours red, orange and yellow, are arranged in that order in a
repeated manner, that is, LED 1 is red, LED 2 is orange, LED 3 is yellow, LED 4 is red, LED
5 is orange, LED 6 is yellow, and so on.
(iii) Find the colour of the LED nearest to a point on the wire 12.9 m from LED 1.
(iv) If the minimum distance between any two consecutive LEDs is 1 cm so that they can be
mounted on the wire, find the colour of the last LED.

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