Question

after every 10 pages of printing, the ribbon in the dot matrix printer loses about 0.5% of its ink.
a) what percent of the ink is left in the ribbon after printing?
i) 100 pages

Answer 1

Are you currently studying geometric sequences and series?

Answer 2

i studied it last year..

Answer 3

i tried it with the geometric sequence equation and it didn't work, and geometric series formula it didnt work...

Answer 4

Do you agree with this:
Let x = amount of ink on tape
After 10 pages, x - .005x = .995x or 99.5% of ink left after 10 pages?
Agree?
@alexeis_nicole
Once this approach gets rolling, I think a more succinct pattern will emerge.

Answer 5

yes i agree with this,
oh okay, so then after i just do .995^x ?

Answer 6

after 10 Pages: .995x
after 20 Pages: .995x - (.005)(.995x) = .990025x or 99.0025% of the ink remains --> This looks wrong. What do you think?

Answer 7

but shouldnt the amount of ink be lowered by 10 percent? after 20 pages?
if the first 10 already lowered it by 5,..

Answer 8

0.5% is not 5%. .5% is one-half of one-percent or .005.
Five percent is .05 which is not the same as .005. Five-hundreths as opposed to five-thousandths.

Would you check and see if you wrote the percentage loss correct in the question statement? Thanks.