Question

The marriage rate per 1000 population for the years 1987-2009 is given by M(x)=−0.139x+11.074, where x is the number of years after 1980.a. Why is this a linear function, with y=M(x)?b. What is the slope? What does this slope say about the number of unmarried women who get married?

Answer 1

We have

`M\mleft(x\mright)=-0.139x+11.074`

a. If we graph the function given we will obtain a line, also we have a function with degree one, this is a characteristic of a liner function.

the form

`y=mx+b`

is a form of a linear function where m is the slope and b is the y-intercept.

b. as we can see our slope is -0.139 because the slope is negative the value of the function will decrease when x is bigger, so we have more unmarried women because the marriage decrease when x is bigger also the slope is the rate of change.