At one of New York’s traffic signals, if more than 17 cars are held up at the intersection, a traffic officer will intervene and direct the traffic. The hourly traffic pattern from 12:00 p. m. to 10:00 p. m. mimics the random numbers generated between 5 and 25. (This holds true if there are no external factors such as accidents or car breakdowns.)

The random variable is the number of cars held up at the intersection.

A random variable is one whose value is aleatory, then you can not know anticipatedly the outcome for sure. In this case, the number of cars held up at the intersection may be different at any time inside the range given and you cannot know the number of cars that there will be in a future moment.

see explanation

step-by-step explanation:

since the sequence is geometric there is a common ratio r between consecutive terms, that is

r = 4 ÷ - 2 = - 2

r = - 8 ÷ 4 = - 2

r = 16 ÷ 8 = - 2

the next term - 13 must be incorrect as it should be - 32 for the sequence to be geometric.

the first 4 terms are therefore geometric with common ratio r = - 2