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Re: Word Problems
Posted:
Aug 25, 1996 1:38 AM
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Professor Toom:
"Estimate" in this context clearly implies connecting the discrete
points plotted with a "smooth" curve using paper and pencil--What's your
beef?
Why isn't an equation a model for the data? Seems perfectly clear.
Fanciful? What do you mean?
Boring? I think you have a point here (although perhaps you have left
out the context)--but then no more boring than finding the weight of
dehydrated potatoes!
I rather like the idea of exercise 3. Students are rarely asked to
reason from the outputs back to the input (at least that has been my
experience with many traditional texts).
H^2
Andre TOOM wrote:
>
> Precalculus Mathematics: A Graphing Approach. 3d edition.
> Franklin Demana, Bert K. Watts, Stanley R. Clemens.
>
> P. 20. Exercises for Section 1.2
>
> In Exercises 1 and 2 graph on a rectangular coordinate system the (x,y)
> pairs from the given data. In each case, estimate a complete graph.
>
> 1.
> x | -4 -1 1 4 9
> --------------------------
> y | -2 1 3 6 11
>
> 2.
> x | 1 2 3 4 5
> --------------------------
> y | 1 4 9 16 25
>
> 3. Use a graphing utility to graph y = 100 sqrt(x).
> Then use the technique you used in the Exploration on page 16
> to complete the following table of values:
>
> x | ? ? ? ? ?
> --------------------------
> y | 10 20 30 40 50
>
> 4. Show that the equation y=x+2 is a model for the data in Exercise 1.
>
> I think this is enough. How can one ESTIMATE a graph?
> What does it mean that an equation is a MODEL?
> Fanciful language and boring content.
>
--
Howard L. Hansen
Assistant Professor of Mathematics
Western Illinois University
Macomb, IL 61455
http://www.ECNet.Net/users/mfhlh/wiu/index.htm
"Good mathematics is not how many answers you know,
but how you behave when you don't know the answer."
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