a To draw a graph on your calculator, press Y= and write the function in one of the rows. Having written the function, press GRAPH to draw it.
B
b Begin by converting 10 feet to inches. Then, use the trace feature of your calculator.
C
c Having the graph of the model drawn, press 2ND and TRACE. Then, choose the second option in the list, zero and press ENTER. Then, use the right and left arrow keys to move along the curve and determine LeftBound? and RightBound?
A
aGraph:
B
b About 281 pounds
C
c x-intercept: (3.35,0)
Interpretation: See solution
Practice makes perfect
a To draw a graph on our calculator, we first have to press Y= and write the function in one of the rows. Having written the function, we can press GRAPH to draw it. For the given function, we should replace w and l with x and y, respectively.
b Let's first convert 10 feet to inches. Converting between feet (ft) and inches (in) will involve using a conversion factor.
12 in/1 ftMultiplying 10ft by this conversion factor will convert it to inches.
To estimate the weight of an alligator that is 120 inches long, we can use the trace feature of our calculator. Having drawn the graph, we press TRACE. Then, we use the right and left arrow keys to move along the graph to get y=120. Let's do it!
Therefore, the weight of the alligator is about 281 pounds.
c Having the graph of the model drawn, we press 2ND and TRACE. Then, we choose the second option in the list, zero and press ENTER.
Next, we will use the right and left arrow keys to move along the curve and determine LeftBound?. The left bound must be below the x-axis. Then, we press ENTER.
Next, we will determine RightBound? proceeding in the same way. The right bound must be above the x-axis. Then, we again press ENTER.
Now, we will press ENTER one more time to determine the zero of the function.
The x-intercept of the function is (3.35,0). The x-intercept tells us that an alligator with a weight of 3.35 pounds has no length. However, if an object have a weight, it must have a length. Therefore, the x-value does not make sense in this content.
