While adding the first few continuous natural numbers, a candidate missed one of the numbers and wrote the answer as 177. What was the number missed ?
While adding the first few continuous natural numbers, a candidate missed one of the numbers and wrote the answer as 177. What was the number missed ?
Answer:
(c)
The problem is essentially asking for a number that must have been skipped when summing the first few natural numbers resulting in a total of 177. The formula for the sum of the first `n` natural numbers is n*(n+1)/2. The value closest to 177 using this formula comes at n=19, yielding 190. Hence, we subtract 177 from 190, which equals to 13. So, the candidate must have missed the number 13 when adding them up. Looking at the options: Option 1: 11 – If the missed number was 11, the sum would have been 179, which is not the case. Option 2: 12 – If the missed number was 12, the sum would have been 178, which isn`t our target number. Option 3: 13 – As explained above, if the missed number was 13, the sum would be 177 which is our target number. Option 4: 14 – If the missed number was 14, the sum would have been 176, which isn`t the required total. Hence, The correct answer is option 3.