Question

Find the next term of the given sequence?
$958\ ,\ 833\ ,\ 733\ ,\ 658\ ,\ 608\ ,\ ?$
$(a) 577$
$(b) 583$
$(c) 567$
$(d) 573$
(e) None of these

Answer 1

Hint: Notice the difference between each number and form another sequence. Then again find the difference of each consecutive number in this sequence which will tell what the next terms should be.

Complete step-by-step answer:
We notice the following pattern ,
$$958-833=125$$
$$833-733=100$$
$$733-658=75$$
$$658-608=50$$
The consecutive differences form a new sequence as follows,
$$125,\ 100\ ,\ 75\ ,\ 50$$
As we can see every term is $25$ less than the previous, it is routine to guess that the next term in this series should be $50-25=25$.

So the next difference should be $25$ which we can use to find the next term in the original series. The last term was $608$ , so the next term should be $608-25=583$.

Option (b) is the correct answer.

Note: Questions involving a sequence of numbers can always be solved by noticing a fixed pattern between the numbers. This pattern is often the difference between the consecutive terms that follow a pattern.