Precalculus
9.2 and 9.3 Application Problems
Name
Date
Wilson
1. An amphitheater has 50 rows of seats with 30 seats in the first row, 32 in
the second, 34 in the third, and so on. Find the total number of seats.
2. The seating section in a theater has 27 seats in the first row, 29 seats in the second row, and so on, increasing
by 2 seats each row for a total of 10 rows. How many seats are in the tenth row, and how many seats are in the
section?
3. Telephone poles are stored in a pile with 25 poles in the first layer, 24 in the second and so on. If there are 12
layers, how many telephone poles does the pile contain?
4. Wakefield auditorium has 26 rows. The first row has 22 seats. The number of seats in each row increases by
4 as you move to the back of the auditorium. How many seats are in the last row? What is the seating
capacity of this auditorium?
5. A contest offers 15 prizes. The first prize is $5000, and each successive prize is $250 less than the preceding
prize. What is the value of the fifteenth prize? What is the total amount of money distributed in prizes?
6. A person has two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, and so on. How many ancestors does a
person have 15 generations back?
7. A company has a job opening with a salary of $50,000 for the first year. Each year there is a 3.5% raise in
salary. What will your salary be in 10 years? What is the total compensation over 10 years?
8. A culture initially has 5000 bacteria, and its size increases by 8% every hour. How many bacteria are present
at the end of 5 hours? Find a formula for the number of bacteria present after n hours.
9. A ball is dropped from a height of 80 feet. The elasticity of this ball is such that it rebounds three-fourths of
the distance it has fallen. How high does the ball rebound on the fifth bounce? Find a formula for how high
the ball rebounds on the nth bounce?
10. When “superballs” sprang upon the scene in the 1960’s, kids across the United States were amazed that these
hard rubber balls could bounce to 90% of the height from which they were dropped. If a superball is dropped
from a height of 2 m, how far does it travel by the time it hits the ground floor for the tenth time?