24 dogs line up for breakfast. The first cat eats one fish, the second cat eats two fish, and so on, with each cat eating one more fish than the one before it. How many fish are eaten in total.

Answer 1

Who knows.
Depends on how many cats we have.

If you meant, 24 cats line up for breakfast ....

cat 1 eats 1 fish, total fish eaten = 1
cat 2 eats 2 fish, total fish eaten = 1+2 = 3
cat 3 eats 3 fish, total fish eaten = 3+6 = 6
cat 4 eats 4 fish, total fish eaten = 6+4 = 10
cat 5 eats 5 fish, total fish eaten = 10+5 = 15
cat 6 eats 6 fish, total fish eaten = 15+6 = 21
etc

this is really just an arithmetic sequence where
a = 1, d = 1, n = 24
and Sum(24) = 12(2 + 23(1)) = 300