Question

Phillip is standing across the classroom from his desk. He walks x steps in a straight line to his right, turns left at a 90° angle, and then walks another y steps in a straight line to arrive at his desk. The shortest path from Phillip's original position to his desk is d steps.

Which of the following functions would best model the situation above?
  a.polynomial
b.step
c.absolute value
d.square root

Answer 1

The answer is D.) Square Root

Answer 2

The functions that would best model the situation above is:

Option:d

d. Square root

Explanation:

From the diagram attached to the answer we may clearly observe that the shortest path from Phillip's original position to his desk could be calculated with the help of Pythagorean Theorem as:

`d=√(x^2+y^2)`

( Since, the shortest step d is the hypotenuse of the right Triangle with other two legs as x and y )

Hence, the function that model this situation is a square root function.