Question

One of the drawbacks to working with recursive sequences is that __________.

A. They are unpredictable
B. They require constant input
C. They can be time-consuming
D. They may not converge

Answer 1

One of the drawbacks to working with recursive sequences is that they can be time-consuming because one must compute all preceding terms to find a specific term in the sequence.

Step-by-step explanation:

One of the drawbacks to working with recursive sequences is that they can be time-consuming. Recursive sequences define each term based on the preceding terms, and as such, to find a particular term, one might need to compute all the previous terms first. This process can grow to be very resource-intensive, especially for sequences that require significant computational overhead for each step or when trying to find terms deep in the sequence.

While options A, B, and D could apply in certain contexts to other mathematical procedures, when it comes to recursive sequences specifically, unpredictability is generally not an issue as the sequence follows a deterministic process. They do not require constant input since after the initial conditions are set, the sequence is self-propagating. Convergence may not apply as some recursive sequences, like the Fibonacci sequence, are meant to generate indefinitely and do not need to converge.