COLLEGE DEPARTMENT

PROBLEM SOLVING, MATHEMATICAL INVESTIGATION AND

MODELING
Week 10
FIND A PATTERN
A pattern is a regular systematic repetition which often occurs in problems where there is a
progression of data. Patterns may be numerical, verbal, spatial/visual, patterns in time or pattern in
sound.
When students use this problem-solving strategy, they are encouraged to analyze patterns in
data by decoding rules that create the patterns and make predictions and generalization based on
there analysis. The rues are formulas developed or discovered point to the solution. Students then
must check the generalization against the information in the problem and possibly make a prediction
from, or extension of, the given information.
By identifying the pattern, one can predict what will come next and will happen again and again
in the same way. Looking for patterns is a very important strategy for problem-solving. It is used to
solve many different problems. Sometimes one can solve a problem by just recognizing a pattern, but
often he/she will have to extend a pattern to find a solution. Making a table often reveals patterns and
for this reason it is frequently used in conjunction with this strategy.
Example 1:
Circle are arranged in triangular patterns as shown below.

Triangle 1
Triangle 2
Triangle 3
a. Draw the pattern of circles for triangle 4 and 5.
b. How many dots are there in 7th pattern?
c. Come up with a rule or formula to determine the number of dots in nth pattern.

a. If we continue the pattern, triangles 4 and 5 would look like the following:

Triangle 4
Triangle 5
b. To determine the number of circles in the 7 th pattern and in the nth pattern, we construct the
table this way:
Pattern 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 N
Number of 1 3 6 10 15
circles
Observe that the number of circles form a pattern such as 1,3,6,9,15, and so on. There is one
circle in the first pattern to get the number of circles in the second patten, we add 2 to 1 which makes
it 3. To get the number of circles in the 3rd pattern, add 3 to 3 to get 6. To get the number of circles in
the 4th pattern, add 4 to 6 to make it 10. It means we are adding 2,3,4,5 and so on to the number of
circles to get the next. Therefore, the 6th pattern has 15 (5th pattern)+6 = 21 circles; the 7th pattern has
21 +7=28 circles.
1|Page SHIERA S. SIMBAJON, LPT
Instructor
 COLLEGE DEPARTMENT

Pattern 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 N
Number of 1 3 6 10 15 21 28
circles
c. By analyzing the data presented in the table, the rule may be formulated to find the number of
circles in the nth pattern, that is,
n(n+1)
Number of circles in the nth pattern= .
2

EXERCISES:
Solve the following problems using the strategy “Find a Pattern”.
1. Naturals numbers are arranged in a triangular shape shown below. If the pattern continues,
what number is the third form the left in the 50 th row.
1
2 3 4
5 6 7 8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16
∙
∙
∙
2. What is the next term in the series:
1,1,2,4,7,13,24,44,___?
3. Five children A,B,C,D, and E were setting around a table. Cards with numbers 201-400,
arranged in order, were placed on the table. C took the first card, D took the second, and so on
until all the cards have been taken up.
A B C D E
201 202 203
204 205 206 207 208
209 210

a. Who received the card with the number 215?

b. Who got the card with the number 301?
c. Who picked the card with number 398?

2|Page SHIERA S. SIMBAJON, LPT

Instructor