Question

On Monday morning, myra began her 1.3 mile walk to school. after a few minutes of walking, she walked right into a spider web. She began running until she ran into her friend tanisha. she stopped and told tanisha of her adventurous morning and the icky spider web! then they walked the rest of the way to school. what is the independent and dependent quantity?

Answer 1

The independent quantity I believe is the amount of time is takes for each section of her journey. The dependent quantity or the amount of time it takes for her entire journey.

Answer 2

The problem statement is telling you Myra's speed at different points in her journey. First she is walking, then running, then stopped, then walking again. This suggests Myra's speed is the dependent variable. Often, problems involving speed or position use time as the independent variable. Here, that is suggested by the description, "... after a few minutes of walking, ...".

Myra's speed changes at the place where the spider web was, and again at the place where she met her friend (and when she reached school). Hence the independent variable could be position (distance), rather than time.