2.4. Inductive Reasoning from Patterns http://www.ck12.org
2.4 Inductive Reasoning from Patterns
Here you’ll learn how to inductively draw conclusions from patterns in order to make predictions and solve problems.
The Locker Problemchange means closing lockers that are open, and opening lockers that are closed). The fourth
student will change the position of all locker doors numbered with multiples of four and so on. Imagine that this
continues until the 1000 students have followed the pattern with the 1000 lockers. At the end, which lockers will
be open and which will be closed? After completing this Concept, you will be able to use inductive reasoning solve
this problem.
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Click image to the left for more content.CK-12 Foundation: Chapter2InductiveReasoningA
Watch the first two parts of this video.
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Click image to the left for more content.James Sousa:Inductive Reasoning
Guidance
Inductive reasoningis making conclusions based upon observations and patterns. Visual patterns and number
patterns provide good examples of inductive reasoning. Let’s look at some patterns to get a feel for what inductive
reasoning is.
Example A
A dot pattern is shown below. How many dots would there be in the bottom row of the 4thfigure? What would the
total numberof dots be in the 6thfigure?
There will be 4 dots in the bottom row of the 4thfigure. There is one more dot in the bottom row of each figure than
in the previous figure.
There would be a total of 21 dots in the 6thfigure, 6+ 5 + 4 + 3 + 2 + 1.