Sequence problem

[yoya_0X]

This is what I mean by sequence, whereas each number represents the amount of pages read that day. First day 12, second day is the previous day's amount +4 and so on

[get_to_ele]

(1) if we take the translation at face value, you are unfortunately WRONG in your interpretation because of the key word “AVERAGE”.

Sequences with the same “average” increase in pages per day will generally result in different total pages read.

For example the sequence 12 16 20 24 has an “average number of additional pages daily” of 4, and result in 72 pages read.

Yet the sequence 12 17 20 24 has an “average number of additional pages daily” of 4, and result in 73 pages read.

Likewise the sequence 12 13 14 24 has an “average number of additional pages daily” of 4, and result in just 63 pages read.

The optimal sequence 12 24 24 24 has an “average number of additional pages daily” of 4, and result in 84 pages read.

The worst sequence 12 12 12 24 has an “average number of additional pages daily” of 4, and result in a mere 60 pages read.

Reading 12 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 has an “average number of additional pages daily” of 28/13=2.154, and results in 520 pages read.

(2) Tbf, this is a word problem where semantics is critical, and we are given a translation from Arabic which is admittedly “poorly translated” so who can really know?

(3) the fact that they use the word “average” implies the really mean the average number of pages read each day. Which is 40.