ALGEBRA FOR COLLEGE ENTRANCE EXAMINATIONS

Sequences and Series

1. Find the 30
th
term of an arithmetic progression 4, 7, 10 (Ans. 91)
2. A stack of bricks has 61 bricks in the bottom layer, 58 bricks in the second layer, 55 bricks in the
third layer and so on until there are 10 bricks in the last layer. How many bricks are there
together? (Ans. 639)
3. The last term of an arithmetic sequence is 207, the common difference is 3, and the number of
terms is 14. What is the first term of the sequence? (Ans. 168)
4. The balcony of a theater has 12 rows of seats. The last row contains 8 seats, and each of the
other rows contains one more seat than the row behind it. How many seats are there in the
balcony? (Ans. 162)
5. The sum of the progression 5, 8, 11, 14, is 1025. How many terms are there? (Ans. 25)
6. The third term of a geometric sequence is 32 and the fifth term is 128. Find the first term and
the common ratio. (Ans. a
1
=8, r=2 or -2)
7. You visit the Grand Canyon and drop a penny off the edge of a cliff. The distance the penny will
fall is 16 feet the first second, 48 feet the next second, 80 feet the third second, and so on in an
arithmetic sequence. What is the total distance the object will fall in 6 seconds? (Ans. 576)
Ration, Proportion and Variation
1. Express as simplified fraction:
2. Write an equation that describes each variation.
a. d is directly proportional to t. d=r when t=1.
b. V is directly proportional to both l and w. V=6h when w=3 and h=4.
c. W is directly proportional to both R and the square of I. W=4 when R=100 and I=0.25.
d. H is inversely proportional to X. H=10 when X=5
e. A is directly proportional to B and inversely proportional to C. When B=1 and C=2, B=3
3. Hookes Law states that the force needed to keep a spring stretched x units beyond its natural
length is directly proportional x. Here the constant of proportionality is called a spring constant.
a. Write Hookes Law as an equation.
b. If a spring has a natural length of 10 cm and a force of 40 N is required to maintain the
spring stretched to a length of 15 cm, find the spring constant.
c. What force is needed to keep the spring stretched to a length of 14cm?
4. A brother and sister have weight (pounds) that varies as the cube of the cube of height (feet)
and they share the same proportionality constant. The sister is 6 feet tall and weighs 170
pounds. Her brother is 64 tall. How much does he weigh?


Quadratic Equations
1. Determine the nature of roots of the following quadratic equation.

2. Solve the equations:
a. X
2
-12x+35=0
b. X(2X+5)=3
c. X
2
-16=0
d.

e.

f.

g.
3. Find the value of k in the equation

so that the roots are equal.

4. If the roots of the equation are 1 and 2, what is the quadratic equation?
Polynomials
1. The polynomial

is divided by x-5, what is the remainder?

2. Find the remainder if we divide

by 2y+3.