SOLUTION: the time is 7A.M. and there is six inches of snow how much snow would be on the ground the night before at 11P.M. if the snow fell at a rate of .5 inches per hour and the equation

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Question 548293: the time is 7A.M. and there is six inches of snow how much snow would be on the ground the night before at 11P.M. if the snow fell at a rate of .5 inches per hour and the equation is 6+0.5x
Answer by mathie123(224) About Me  (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!
It looks like you have already done the hard part of the question..(the equation)
If we let time 0 be 7AM. We know at this time we have 6 inches of snow (this is like the y-intercept) the rate of 0.5 is the slope as for every hour we go up 0.5 inches.
The graph looks like this:
graph%28300%2C300%2C-10%2C10%2C0%2C10%2C6%2B0.5x%29
Now at 11PM the night before, how many hours passed to get to time 0 (7AM)?
If you think about it long enough 7+1=8 hours passed (so our x value is -8)
All we need to see is what the y value is when x=-8
This could be seen on the graph, but if you are like me and your graphs aren't perfect like the computer shows them... theres another way
y=6%2B0.5%2Ax
y=6%2B0.5%2A%28-8%29
y=2

So 2 inches will be there at 11PM the night before.
MENTAL CHECK: If you ended up with a negative number, thats not good.. theres no such thing as a negative amount of snow... our answer passes the mental check!