Question

Lyla notices that the level of the water in her swimming pool drops each week if she doesn't regularly refill it. The equation y = -1.6x + 42 represents the height of the water at the shallow end of the pool, y, in inches after x number of weeks beginning in June. What is the slope and what does it represent?​

Answer 1

The slope of the equation y = -1.6x + 42 is -1.6, which represents the rate at which the water level in Lyla's pool decreases by 1.6 inches each week.

Step-by-step explanation:

In this equation, the slope is -1.6. The slope here indicates the rate at which the water level is dropping each week.

Since the slope is negative, this means there is an inverse relationship between the number of weeks and the water height.

Specifically, for each week that passes, the water level drops by 1.6 inches. This negative slope portrays the gradual decrease in water level over time if Lyla does not refill the pool.

The concept of a negative slope generally implies that as the independent variable (in this case, time in weeks) increases, the dependent variable (here, water height) decreases.