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Guy Akush

Mr. Diamantis

Algebra

03/11/16

SC#9-A

This Problem is about a new basketball league that is formed in Origins high school, the problem

involves a few teams that are playing against each other and the question is how many games

will they play the whole season. this problem reminds me of a similar problem we did in class

the handshake problem, It was about few students who wanted to know how many handshakes

they will do.

To solve this problem I used a ​formula​ and a ​table.​ These strategies are helpful because when

you use the table you can see all the information in a organized way and with a formula you can

find the answer fast by plugging in the numbers.

My first prediction was: there is a ​pattern​ that you can see in the ​table. ​The first step I took was :

I made a ​table​ and I used a small drawing to help me build a ​table​ from all the given information,

the given information is there are 7 teams and they are going to play against each other 3 times

how many games will they play ? and how many games will they play if we will add an eighth

team.

I took this step because I wanted to see all the information in a more organized way.
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teams games

1 O (+1)

2 1 (+2)

3 3 (+3)

4 6 (+4)

5 10 (+5)

6 15 (+6)

7 21​ (+7)

8 28 ​ (+8)

So the first thing you can see is there is a ​pattern​ that goes up with every team adding.

So for 7 teams and each team will play once one against each other they will play 21 games and

if I want to know how many games they will play if they will play three times against each other

I will simple multiply it by three so ​21✕3=63 ​ and if I will want know what will happen if we

will add an eighth team we will solve it like this ​28×3=84

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There is another way to solve this problem we can use a ​formula

The formula that I came up with by using help from the handshake problem is :

α 2 ­α
When the ​variable​ α represents the number of the teams.
2

So for α we will plug in the number of teams that we want to know how many games they

played and then we will multiply the answer by 3 because they are playing 3 time against each

other.

7 2 ­7
So we will get 2 =21​ ​and then we will multiply the answer by 3 and we will get

21×3=63​.

And if we will want to know how many games they will play if there was an eighth team we will

8 2­ 8
plug in 8 for α so we will get ​ 28 a​ nd then we will multiply 28 by 3 so we will get
=
2

28×3=84 ​ ​so if there will be an eighth team they will play 84 times.

So after solving in both table and formula we saw that they both give us the same answer of ​63

games. ​And like you saw the answer for the question what will happen if we will have an eighth

team is ​28.​ As you saw my prediction was right there was pattren.

What can I do better next time ?

Next time I could focus more on the writing part of the problem.