Question

A movie theater sells popcorn in bags of different sizes. The table shows the volume of popcorn and the price of the bag.

Answer 1

Answer:

The price for a 60-ounce bag of popcorn would be $16

Step-by-step explanation:

Function Modeling

The behavior of some parameters that depend on a set of variables can be modeled in several ways, like linear, quadratic, exponential, logarithmic, among many others.

The selection of the model is often a complex decision that involves statistics and data analysis.

The question provides us with four points where the volume of popcorn bags and the price in dollars. The easiest function that can be used is the line.

The equation of a line of the volume V and the price p can be found with the expression

$\displaystyle p-p_1=\frac{p_2-p_1}{V_2-V_1}(V-V_1)$

We'll use the first two values (6,10) (8,20)

$\displaystyle p-6=\frac{8-6}{20-10}(V-10)$

Simplifying and rearranging, we get the model

$\displaystyle p(V)=\frac{1}{5}V+4$

To test the accuracy of the model, we compute the values of p for V=35 and for V=48

$\displaystyle p(35)=\frac{1}{5}(35)+4=11$

$\displaystyle p(48)=\frac{1}{5}(48)+4=13.6$

Since the computed values are equal to those of the table, the model is accurate. We can now predict the price for V=60

$\displaystyle p(60)=\frac{1}{5}(60)+4=16$

The price for a 60-ounce bag of popcorn would be $16