Tom started with total 72 chocolate wafers.
Explanation
The number of chocolate wafers taken by 8 members of the baseball team are in the sequence : [tex]1, 3,5,7,9,11,13,15[/tex]
The above sequence is arithmetic sequence with first term(a₁)= 1 and common difference (d) = 2
Formula for Sum of first [tex]n[/tex] terms in arithmetic sequence is....
[tex]S_{n}= \frac{n}{2}[2a_{1}+(n-1)d][/tex]
So, the Sum of 8 terms in that sequence....
[tex]S_{8}= \frac{8}{2}[2(1)+(8-1)(2)]\\ \\ S_{8}= 4[2+7(2)]\\ \\ S_{8}=4(2+14)\\ \\ S_{8}=4(16)=64[/tex]
That means, the total number of chocolate wafers taken by the baseball team members is 64. Tom ate 5 and then gave his brother 3 chocolate wafers at first.
So, the total number of chocolate wafers at starting [tex]=64+5+3=72[/tex]
