Question

Francine and Genevieve were arguing about whether a recursive formula or an explicit formula was better to know to find the 376th term in a sequence. Francine believes that it is the recursive formula, while Genevieve believes that it is the explicit formula. Who is correct? Justify your answer using complete sentences and proper grammar.

Answer 1

Genevieve is correct. This is because if you only want to find a particular term of a sequence like in this word problem only the 376th term; the explicit definition will be more useful and quick. Recursive requires the previous numbers to find the next term and will take longer time to find the 376th term.