The following question was presented:
Karen thought that we needed to have another problem type question and I can't be bothered to think today as I'm at the end of the Thanksgiving weekend, so here's the question that Karen came up with - what's the next number in the sequence 2, 7, 17, 37 ...?
Results:
77 was the clear winner with 90% of the votes selected from the following:
- 7 (0%)
- 17 (0%)
- 27 (0%)
- 37 (0%)
- 47 (0%)
- 57 (0%)
- 67 (10%)
- 77 (90%)
- 87 (0%)
- 97 (0%)
Graphic of Results:
Analysis:
Well, it looks like a much better hit rate this time. Yes, the correct answer is 77 - at least that's what Karen told me and I'm assuming she knew the answer to her own problem. If anyone's wondering, the way I did it was to look at the gap between the numbers and notice that it was doubling, so the first gap is 5, the second 10 and the third 20 which presumably means the next gap would be 40. Add 40 to the last number in the sequence (37) and you get to the answer of 77.
There may be other ways to get there (including random guessing). If so, feel free to comment.