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4A3 notes on sequences 14/7/2021

What is a sequence?

• A sequence is simply a set of numbers (or objects) in an order

• Number sequences are sets of numbers that follow a pattern or a
rule.

• If the rule is to add or subtract a number each time, it is called

an arithmetic sequence.
• If the rule is to multiply or divide by a number each time, it is called
a geometric sequence.

• Each number in a sequence is called a term.

What is a linear sequence?

• A linear sequence is one where the numbers go up (or down) by the

same amount each time
o eg 1, 4, 7, 10, 13, … (add 3 to get the next term)
o 15, 10, 5, 0, -5, … (subtract 5 to get the next term)
• If we look at the differences between the terms, we see that they
are constant

What can we do with linear sequences?

• You should be able to recognise and continue a linear sequence

• You should also be able to find a formula for the nth term of a linear
sequence in terms of n
• This formula will be in the form:
nth term = dn + b
where
d is the common difference, b is a constant that makes the first
term “work”

Term to term rules

The term to term rule of a sequence describes how to get from one
term to the next.
Example 1

Work out the next two terms in the following sequence and write down
the term to term rule:
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3, 7, 11, 15, ...

Firstly, work out the difference in the terms.

This sequence is going up by four each time, so add 4 on to the last

term to find the next term in the sequence.

3, 7, 11, 15, 19, 23, ...

To work out the term to term rule, give the starting number of the
sequence and then describe the pattern of the numbers.

The first number is 3. The term to term rule is 'add 4'.

Once the first term and term to term rule are known, all the terms in the
sequence can be found.

Example 2

Work out the next two terms in the following sequence and write down
the term to term rule:

-1, -0.5, 0, 0.5, ...

The first term is -1. The term to term rule is 'add 0.5'.

Question
What is the term to term rule and the next two terms of the
sequence: 17, 14, 11, 8, ...?

To work out the term to term rule, give the first term and then the
pattern. The first term is 17, and the pattern is to subtract 3 each time,
so the term to term rule is 'start at 17 and subtract 3'.

The next two terms of the sequence are 5 and 2, giving the sequence
as:
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Question
What are the next 3 terms of a sequence that has a first term of 1,
where the term to term rule is multiply by 2?
The first term is given as 1. Each number that follows is double the
number before.

Position to term rules or nth term

Each term in a sequence has a position. The first term is in position 1, the
second term is in position 2 and so on.
Position to terms rules use algebra to work out what number is in a sequence if
the position in the sequence is known. This is also called the nth term, which is
a position to term rule that works out a term at position n, where n means any
position in the sequence.

Working out position to term rules

Example

Work out the position to term rule for the following sequence: 5, 6, 7, 8, ...

First, write out the sequence and the positions of each term.

Position 1 2 3 4

Term 5 6 7 8

Next, work out how to go from the position to the term.

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Position 1 2 3 4

Operation +4 +4 +4 +4

Term 5 6 7 8

In this example, to get from the position to the term, take the position number
and add 4.

If the position is n, then the position to term rule is n+4.

The nth term

The nth term of a sequence is the position to term rule using n to represent the
position number.

Example

Work out the nth term of the following sequence: 3, 5, 7, 9, ...

Firstly, write out the sequence and the positions of the terms.

As there isn't a clear way of going from the position to the term, look for
a common difference between the terms. In this case, there is a
difference of 2 each time.

Operation +1 +1 +1 +1

Term 3 5 7 9

To get from the position to the term, first multiply the position by 2 then
add 1. If the position is n, then this is 2×n+1 which can be written
as 2n+1.
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Using the nth term

If the nth term of a sequence is known, it is possible to work out any number in
that sequence.

Example

Write the first five terms of the sequence 3n+4.

n represents the position in the sequence. The first term in the sequence is
when n=1, the second term in the sequence is when n=2, and so on.

How to find the nth term formula for a linear sequence

• Find the common difference between the terms – this is d

• Put the first term and n=1 into the formula, then solve to find b
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