Question

The height of a plant in centimeters is recorded each day for 10 days. The function y = 1.73x + 1.87 is determined to

be a good fit for the data. On day 6 the recorded height was 12.5 cm. How close is the predicted height to the actual
height of the plant (the residual)?
15 points

Answer 1

Answer: 0.25 cm

Step-by-step explanation: The function y = 1.73x + 1.87 is used as a prediction. Since the answer is asking for how close the predicted height to the actual height is on day 6, we substitute 6 for x.

The function becomes like this:

y = 1.73(6) + 1.87

y = 10.38 + 1.87

y = 12.25

y = 12.25 cm is the predicted height on day 6. The actual height on day 6 recorded is 12.5 cm. We subtract the predicted height from the actual height and get 0.25 cm.