Question

If the sum of four consecutive numbers is 1998, what is the third one?

Answer 1

Answer:

$\huge\boxed{500}$

Step-by-step explanation:

In order to solve this, we have to note that consecutive numbers are numbers that are one more than the last.

If our first number is represented as $n$, then we know that the next number will be $n+1$, the next will be $n+2$, and so on.

Since we want 4 numbers, we can create the equation:$n + (n+1) + (n+2) + (n+3) = 1998$

Now we want to solve for $n$. It's important to note that $n$ is our first number.

Combine like terms:

$4n+6=1998$

Subtract 6 from both sides:

$4n=1992$

Divide both sides by 4:

$n = 498$

We want the third number in the set of these four numbers. Looking back to our equation ($n + (n+1) + (n+2) + (n+3) = 1998$) we can see that the third term here is $n+2$

$498+2=500$

Hope this helped!