Maths Olympiad Prep

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Algebra Difficulty 3.0 AMC 10/12 Prove it United Kingdom

In the sequence 20,18,2,20,18,20, 18, 2, 20, -18, \ldots the first two terms a1a_1 and a2a_2 are 20 and 18 respectively. The third term is found by subtracting the second from the first, a3=a1a2a_3 = a_1 - a_2. The fourth is the sum of the two preceding elements, a4=a2+a3a_4 = a_2 + a_3. Then a5=a3a4a_5 = a_3 - a_4, a6=a4+a5a_6 = a_4 + a_5, and so on. What is the sum of the first 2018 terms of this sequence?

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