Question

The graph below shows the profits for a circus.a. What is the dependent variable?b. What is the independent variable?c. What is the slope (rate of change) of the line?d. What does this number mean for the circus?

Answer 1

Most of the time, the independent variable is located in the horizontal axis (x) and the dependent variable is located in the vertical axis (y), a change in the independent variable causes an influence on the value of the dependent variable, in this case, the dependent variable would be the profit in $ (thousands) and the independent variable is the # of tickets sold (thousands).

The slope of a line (m) is calculated by means of the formula:

`m=(y2-y1)/(x2-x1)`

Where (x1,y1) and (x2,y2) are points of the line, i this case, the x coordinate of the line represents # of tickets sold and the y coordinate the profit in $.

We can take whatever point from the line, I'll take the points (0,0) and (40,60), then the slope of the line is:

`m=(60-0)/(40-0)=(60)/(40)=(6)/(4)=(3)/(2)`

Then, the slope of the line equals 3/2

The slope of this line represents the earnings per ticket