The Economic Policy Institute periodically issues reports on workers’ wages. The institute reported that mean wages for male college graduates were $37.39 per hour and for female college graduates were $27.83 per hour in 2017. Assume the standard deviation for male graduates is $4.60, and for female graduates, it is $4.10.

, and

for

step-by-step explanation:

we can analyze the pattern at which the terms increase. let us denote , , , so that we can call

note the following:

the pattern: to get the next term value, we just add the next term number (e.g. 1st, 2nd, to the previous term value (term values are the given numbers in the question, 1, 3, 6, 10, 15,

from , to get to , we add

from , to get to , we add

etc.

we need to form a recursive formula, a formula that has the next term as a function of the previous term. so a possible recursive formula can be

, and for