SOLUTION: 4, 6, 9, 3, 2, 3, 6, 2, 1, x, y What is x+y?

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Question 1159979: 4, 6, 9, 3, 2, 3, 6, 2, 1, x, y
What is x+y?
Found 3 solutions by ikleyn, Edwin McCravy, greenestamps:
Answer by ikleyn(52767)   (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
.

Any number.

It is a (or THE) uniquely correct answer.

Any other answer is INCORRECT.



Answer by Edwin McCravy(20054)   (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
Hi,
I am curious as to where you got such an irregular integer sequence problem as
this to find a pattern for.  Will you please inform us as to where you got this
problem?  Is it from a book of mathematics or from a course you are studying?  The
tutor above thinks you just made it up to harass us for fun.  I don't jump to that
conclusion.  Please answer in the space provided below.  Thank you.

Edwin
Answer by greenestamps(13198)   (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!


The point of both of the responses you have received from tutors @edwin and @ikleyn is that there is no way to find the "right" answer to any problem like this without any information given about what kind of sequence it is.

Even if there is a very logical pattern to the given numbers (or even an "obvious" pattern), there is no way to know if the pattern you see is the right one -- the intended answer might be based on a very different pattern than what you see.

The given sequence of 9 integers and the unknown number x and y might be 11 consecutive digits in the decimal expansion of pi, starting with the 2,983,345th digit. Or it might be the numbers of letters in the words in the first sentence of the last email I sent to my friend Joe. Or....

The bottom line on any problem presented to you like this with no accompanying information is that you can only guess what the "right" answer is supposed to be.

And so the only thing we could possibly do for you if you submit a problem like this to this forum is to suggest patterns that we might see.

And since that is a guessing game, whereas the tutors here are instead interested in helping students learn serious mathematics, many tutors here will not spend any time responding to posts like these.
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