The absolute value is the positive magnitude of a particular number or variable and is indicated by two vertical lines: \(\left|-5\right| = 5\). In the case of a variable absolute value (\(\left|a\right| = 5\)) the value of a can be either positive or negative (a = -5 or a = 5).

A rational number (or fraction) is represented as a ratio between two integers, a and b, and has the form \({a \over b}\) where a is the numerator and b is the denominator. An improper fraction (\({5 \over 3} \)) has a numerator with a greater absolute value than the denominator and can be converted into a mixed number (\(1 {2 \over 3} \)) which has a whole number part and a fractional part.

If the tiger has consumed 120 pounds of food in 12 days that's \( \frac{120}{12} \) = 10 pounds of food per day. The tiger needs to consume 150 - 120 = 30 more pounds of food to reach 150 pounds total. At 10 pounds of food per day that's \( \frac{30}{10} \) = 3 more days.

The equation for this sequence is:

a_n = a_n-1 + 3(n - 1)

where n is the term's order in the sequence, a_n is the value of the term, and a_n-1 is the value of the term before a_n. This makes the next number:

a₆ = a₅ + 3(6 - 1)
a₆ = 31 + 3(5)
a₆ = 46

To add these distances, they must share the same unit so first you need to first convert the swim distance from meters (m) to kilometers (km) before adding it to the bike and run distances which are already in km. To convert 100 meters to kilometers, divide the distance by 1000 to get 0.1km then add the remaining distances:

total distance = swim + bike + run
total distance = 0.1km + 20.5km + 15.9km
total distance = 36.5km