No rational human being would see this problem and just start adding the first few items. A smart student would skip the problem. It is counter-intuitive that j

No rational human being would see this problem and just start adding the first few items. A smart student would skip the problem. It is counter-intuitive that just adding the first few items would be correct (why would they make it so obvious). If anything I would start with the last few items. Problems like this are the entire problem with math education in the U.S.