To determine the fiftieth shape in the pattern "square, triangle, circle, oval," we first recognize that the sequence of shapes repeats every four terms.
The pattern can be identified as follows:
- Square
- Triangle
- Circle
- Oval
This is a cycle of 4 shapes.
To find the fiftieth shape, we can use the modulo operation to see where the fiftieth term falls in the cycle:
- Calculate \( 50 \mod 4 \).
- \( 50 \div 4 = 12 \) with a remainder of \( 2 \).
The remainder tells us the position in the cycle:
- Remainder 1 corresponds to "square"
- Remainder 2 corresponds to "triangle"
- Remainder 3 corresponds to "circle"
- Remainder 0 corresponds to "oval" (the 4th position)
Since our remainder is 2, the fiftieth shape is a triangle.