Question

What are the first 5 terms of the sequence?

Answer 1

The letter n indicates which term you are looking at

when n = 1 you have the first term,

when n = 2 you have the second term,

when n = 3 you have the third term,

and so on.

So to find the first term let n = 1 and you get

n2 + 3n = 12 + 3 × 1 = 1 + 3 = 4.

To find the second term let n = 2 and you get

n2 + 3n = 22 + 3 × 2 .

To find the second term let n = 3, and so on.

You need to read carefully because sometime the sequence starts with n = 0 rather than n = 1. So if your sequence is n2 + 3n for n = 0, 1, 2, ... the first term would be

n2 + 3n = 02 + 3 × 0 = 0 + 0 = 0,

and the second term would be

n2 + 3n = 12 + 3 × 1 = 1 + 3 = 4.

I hope this helps,