blueprimes wrote:

GallopingUnicorn45 wrote:

how is this even in middle school math category

$1 + 2 + 3 + ... + 100 = 1 + 2 + 3 + 7 + 100 = \boxed{113}$

Clearly sir, you are deeply mistaken.

Solved with resources, greendivisors, eg4334, lpieleanu, SigmaPiE, Arcticturn, and CoolJupiter.

Here, having several continguous characters as a variable name is absurd! A clear counterexample is in programming, a variable name is invalid if it contains spaces. Thus, the only reasonable explanation is a multiplication using the $\cdot$ symbol standard. We want to solve:
$\cdot \cdot \cdot = 7.$ But this is just $\cdot^2 = 7 \implies \cdot = \sqrt{7}$ . Since we are in Middle School Math, we will not consider the case of $\cdot = -\sqrt{7}$ as surely outrage will spark. Now if you are not experienced in the dark arts, a feeble-minded individual would simply plug in $\dots = 7$ and sum it up. How absurd! Instead, we explore the more reasonable path of multiplying the "normal" sum of $5050$ by $\sqrt{7}$ , as every unit in the sum is replaced by the embedded $\cdots$ within the sequence, clearly the intended path of the creator.

Now suppose it is thousands of years ago and we do not have a calculator. We instead use the approximation $\sqrt{7} \approx 2.64575131106$ written by Euclid himself on a humble rock. Multiplying with our fingers, we obtain
$5050 \cdot \sqrt{7} \approx 13361.0441209.$ Since $5050$ has $3$ significant figures, we round our answer accordingly to scientific procedure to obtain $\boxed{1.34 \times 10^4}$ .

Best solution so far but this makes a slight assumption which seems trivial but is actually incorrect. However, this would probably still get partials.

Intended sol (according to some moppers): Click to reveal hidden text

Remark: I don't know how it would be expected in contest for anyone to actually be able to evaluate $1 + 2 + 3 + 100$ within a reasonable timing even after finding the (already hard) cruxes of considering $G$ and finding $\cdot = \sqrt{7}$ , so this problem is probably best just to be posted here for us to speculate and not used within a timed contest.