Question

How do you know whether a variable is independent or dependent? Give an example.

Answer 1

That always depends of the information given. For example, if we have the following expression:

$y=x+3$

if we make x=3, we would have y=3+3=9, or if we make x=0, then y=0+3=3. In this case, 'y' is the dependent variable, because it changes depending of the value of 'x' that we choose.

However, if we do this to the previous expression:

$\begin{gathered} y=x+3 \\ \Rightarrow x=y-3 \end{gathered}$

Then 'x' becomes de dependent variable, since now its value depends on what happens to y-3 for each value of y that we choose