2006 AMC 10B Problems/Problem 1

Problem

What is $(-1)^{1} + (-1)^{2} + ... + (-1)^{2006}$ ?

$\textbf{(A)} -2006\qquad \textbf{(B)} -1\qquad \textbf{(C) } 0\qquad \textbf{(D) } 1\qquad \textbf{(E) } 2006$

Since $-1$ raised to an odd integer is $-1$ and $-1$ raised to an even integer exponent is $1$ :

$(-1)^{1} + (-1)^{2} + ... + (-1)^{2006} = (-1) + (1) + ... + (-1)+(1) = \boxed{\textbf{(C) }0}.$

2006 AMC 10B (Problems • Answer Key • Resources)
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