Years Amount

Question

1 $1,080
2 $1,160
3 $1,240

The table shows the amount of money in a bank account after a certain number of years. What is the intial value?

Answer 1

To find the initial value (the amount of money in the bank account at the start, which we can denote as \( P \)), we can observe the increments in the amounts given in the table.

From Year 1 to Year 2, the amount increases from $1,080 to $1,160, which is an increase of $80.

From Year 2 to Year 3, the amount increases from $1,160 to $1,240, which is also an increase of $80.

This suggests that the account is increasing by a constant amount of $80 each year. So, we can deduce backward to find the initial amount:

1. Since Year 1 is $1,080, to find the initial amount (Year 0): \[ \text{Initial Amount} = 1,080 - 80 = 1,000 \]

Thus, the initial value of the bank account is $1,000.