document.write( "Question 1164947: In a potato race, 10 potatoes are placed in a straight line 5 meters apart, the first potato being placed 6 meters from the starting point. how many meters does a contestant travel in collecting the potatoes one at a time and placing them in a basket located at the starting point\r
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Algebra.Com's Answer #789373 by htmentor(1343) $\"\"$ $\"About$

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The distance travelled to retrieve each potato will be twice the distance from the starting point to the potato.
\n" ); document.write( "The first distance will be 12 m since the first potato is located 6 m from the starting point
\n" ); document.write( "In general, the distance travelled to retrieve the n-th potato is represented by an arithmetic sequence,
\n" ); document.write( "with the first term equal to 12. The common difference is 10, twice the distance between each potato.
\n" ); document.write( "Thus a_n = 12 + 10(n-1)
\n" ); document.write( "The sum of 10 terms of the arithmetic sequence S_n = (10/2)*(12 + 102) = 570 m \n" ); document.write( "

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