What should come in place of the question mark (?) in the given series?
2 16 44 100 212 ?

The correct option is 436.

Let us analyze the relationship between consecutive terms in the given series:
2, 16, 44, 100, 212, ?

To find the pattern, let us calculate the difference between each consecutive term:

First difference:
16 - 2 = 14
44 - 16 = 28
100 - 44 = 56
212 - 100 = 112

Let us observe the sequence of these differences:
14, 28, 56, 112

We can see that each difference is exactly twice the previous difference:

14 × 2 = 28
28 × 2 = 56
56 × 2 = 112

Following this pattern, the next difference in the sequence should be:

112 × 2 = 224

Now, we add this difference to the last term (212) to find the missing number (?):

? = 212 + 224 = 436

Therefore, the number that should come in place of the question mark is 436.