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Walking up a steep hill, I pass 10 equally spaced street lamps.

I take 5 seconds to walk from the first lamp to the second lamp, 6 seconds from the second lamp to the third, and so on, with each time increasing by 1 second as I slow down.

How long do I take to walk from the first lamp to the last?
 

If you liked this problem, here is an NRICH task which challenges you to use similar mathematical ideas.

This problem is taken from the UKMT Mathematical Challenges.
You can find more short problems, arranged by curriculum topic, in our short problems collection.