Question

Portia is a designer working on creating plans for the city of Geocove's new waterpark. The graph shows her plan for a waterslide for young children. The equation that represents this line is y = -1/3x + 4. The x-axis represents the ground, and the y-axis represents one of the poles that will support the slide.

Graph of y equals the quantity of negative 1 over three times x plus 4. The line is limited to the first quadrant. Points on the line include (0,4), (6,2), and (12.0). The x-axis is labelled Ground. The y-axis is labelled Support Pole.

Each unit on each axis represents 1 foot. Suppose that a rider coming down this slide has a horizontal change of 6 feet. What is the value of their vertical change? Explain your reasoning.

Answer 1

The rider will experience a vertical change of -2 feet.

Step-by-step explanation:

To find the vertical change when a rider comes down this slide with a horizontal change of 6 feet, we can use the equation of the line: y = -1/3x + 4.

The coefficient of x, which is -1/3, represents the slope of the line.

It tells us that for every 1 unit increase in x (horizontal change), the y (vertical change) will decrease by 1/3 units.

Since the horizontal change is 6 feet, the vertical change will be -1/3 * 6 = -2 feet.

Therefore, the rider will experience a vertical change of -2 feet.