The growth of the y-values in the function y = 3x^2 is determined by multiplying the previous y-value by 3 for each increment of x. In other words, the y-values grow by multiplying the previous value by 3, not by adding a fixed number.
So, the growth pattern of the y-values is as follows:
For x = 1, y = 3(1)^2 = 3
For x = 2, y = 3(2)^2 = 12 (3 times the previous value)
For x = 3, y = 3(3)^2 = 27 (3 times the previous value)
For x = 4, y = 3(4)^2 = 48 (3 times the previous value)And so on...
As you can see, each time x increases by 1, the y-value is multiplied by 3, leading to exponential growth.