Question

Draw a graph of Andre's distance as a function of time for this situation: When the football play started, Andre ran forward 20 yards, then turned around and ran 5 yards back. He stood in that spot for 3 seconds, then walked back to where he began.

Answer 1

First let's draw the plane with the distance as function of time:

Now, the first thing we have to consider is the 20 yards that Andre ran when the football play started. That means that starting from t=0 to some value for t greater than 0, we have the following:

then, Andre turned around and ran 5 yards back. Then for another value of t greater than 0, we have the following:

In the next part, Andre stood in that spot for three seconds. That means that for the following values of t, the graph will be a horizontal line where he last stood:

Finally, Andre walked back to where he bega, so the graph would look like this: