Question

Luis counts the total number of ducks swimming on a pond each day. On Monday he counts 1 duck. On Tuesday he counts 2 ducks. On Wednesday he counts 4 ducks. On Thursday he counts 8 ducks. If the pattern continues how many ducks will Luis count on Saturday? And what is the pattern?

Answer 1

On Saturday he will have 36 ducks and the pattern is multiplying by 2 for each number

Answer 2

The pattern is:     Ducks always swim on that pond in powers of 2 .

Monday ........ 2⁰ =  1
Tuesday ........ 2¹ =  2
Wednesday ... 2² =  4
Thursday ....... 2³ =  8

So
Friday ........... 2⁴ =  16
Saturday ...... 2⁵ =  32        <=== the answer  

AND ...
If they kept doing this for a month, then
on the 31st day there would be

       2³⁰ = 1,073,741,824 (more than 1 billion) ducks out there !