Question

Mrs. Long just got a new puppy! The puppy is learning how to run on hard wood floors. The puppy is running at a rate if 4 feet per second straight toward a wall that is 20 feet away. Select all that apply to this situation.

The y-intercept is 4 ft since the puppy is running at a rate of 4 feet per second.


The y-intercept is 20 ft because the puppy is 20 feet away from the wall.


The puppy will run into the wall after 5 seconds.


The slope is 4 ft per second since this is how fast the puppy is running.


The slope is -4 ft per second since the puppy is running at a rate of 4 ft per second.

Answer 1

The puppy will run into the wall after 5 seconds and the slope is 4 ft per second since this is how fast the puppy is running.

Explanation:

The answer choices to this question are assuming that the relationship between the quantities being measured are linear. In a linear equation, the slope represents the rate of change. In this case, the rate is 4 feet per second, so the slope is 4 ft/sec since this is how fast the puppy is running. In a linear equation, the y-intercept represents the initial, or starting, value. Although the wall is 20 feet away, the puppy starts from a distance of zero (0) and would end at a distance of 20 feet. In the linear equation, the 20 feet would represent the total ('y') not the y-intercept. If 20 ft is the total, our equation would be: 20 = 4x, which means x = 5 which is the number of seconds it would take the puppy to run into the wall.