2011 AIME II Problems/Problem 5
Problem
The sum of the first terms of a geometric sequence is
. The sum of the first
terms is
. Find the sum of the first
terms.
Solution
Since the sum of the first terms is
, and the sum of the first
terms is
, the sum of the second
terms is
.
This is decreasing from the first 2011, so the common ratio is less than one.
Because it is a geometric sequence and the sum of the first 2011 terms is , second
is
, the ratio of the second
terms to the first
terms is
. Following the same pattern, the sum of the third
terms is
.
Thus, , so the sum of the first
terms is
.
Solution 2
Solution by e_power_pi_times_i
The sum of the first terms can be written as
, and the first
terms can be written as
. Dividing these equations, we get
. Noticing that
is just the square of
, we substitute
, so
. That means that
. Since the sum of the first
terms can be written as
, dividing gives
. Since
, plugging all the values in gives
.
Solution 3
The sum of the first 2011 terms of the sequence is expressible as .... until
. The sum of the 2011 terms following the first 2011 is expressible as
.... until
. Notice that the latter sum of terms can be expressed as
. We also know that the latter sum of terms can be obtained by subtracting 200 from 380, which then means that
. The terms from 4023 to 6033 can be expressed as
, which is equivalent to
. Adding 380 and 162 gives the answer of
.
Video Solution
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpYphKOIKRs&t=186s ~anellipticcurveoverq
See also
2011 AIME II (Problems • Answer Key • Resources) | ||
Preceded by Problem 4 |
Followed by Problem 6 | |
1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10 • 11 • 12 • 13 • 14 • 15 | ||
All AIME Problems and Solutions |
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