Question

Jane is studying the rate at which the sale of a particular brand of chocolate has increased over the years. The graph below shows the number of bars sold y, in thousands, after x years since the year 2000:graph of y equals 15 multiplied by 1.1 to the power of x
What does the y-intercept of the graph represent?

Answer 1

The y-intercept represents the number of bars sold in the year 2000.  In this case y=15 because:

y=15(1.1)^0

y=15(1)

y=15

And y is in thousands so this represents the sale of 15000 bars in the year 2000.  

Answer 2

The y-intercept, in this case, represents when x is at 0, or when she just began observing.