Need help with problem in Patterns and inductive reasoning!

[Guest]

Hi there! I'm having a lot of trouble with this problem in patterns and inductive reasoning!!! Here it is: FIND THE NEXT TERM IN THE SEQUENCE: 1/2, -4, 32...
Mind you all that I don't have any trouble with finding the pattern of a sequence, it's just THIS PARTICULAR PROBLEM that's thowing me for a loop, lol. I'm very confused, please help! BTW, I'm sort of a newbie here; I just registered. So, hello everyone, I'm Lizz. Thanks.

 

[stapel]

Have you covered arithmetic and/or geometric sequences yet?

Eliz.

 

[Denis]

Re: Need help with problem in Patterns and inductive reasoni

Hi there! I'm having a lot of trouble with this problem in patterns and inductive reasoning!!! Here it is: FIND THE NEXT TERM IN THE SEQUENCE: 1/2, -4, 32...
Mind you all that I don't have any trouble with finding the pattern of a sequence, it's just THIS PARTICULAR PROBLEM that's thowing me for a loop, lol. I'm very confused, please help! BTW, I'm sort of a newbie here; I just registered. So, hello everyone, I'm Lizz. Thanks.

1/2 times n = -4
-4 times n = 32
...what's n ?

 

[Lizzie]

Like Denis says, it's quite simple. Just think, to get to \(\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}\) to \(\displaystyle -4\) what do you do? You have to think, you can get to \(\displaystyle -4\) from \(\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}\) and from \(\displaystyle -4\) to \(\displaystyle 32\) quite easily. Firs of all, in these numbers, you have some positive and you have a negative as well. So, if you are mutiplying by a number, \(\displaystyle n\), then what does this tell you about that number?