Thread: Help with wording of a question

Hey everyone.. so this isn't really a math problem, but it kind of is at the same time. I have something that I need to hand in on Monday, but the system in which I can contact a teacher from my coorespondence course will probably only get me a reply by Wensday. I was wondering if you could help me to determine what they want in this question:

h=-5t^2+30t+10

d) Determine the instantaneous velocity of the flare at t = 3 seconds by using the slopes of secants. (3 marks: 1 for table, 2 marks for slopes)

Now, I am wondering, for the slopes of secants, are they implying that I should graph them or just figure them out in my table?

Originally Posted by Slipery

Hey everyone.. so this isn't really a math problem, but it kind of is at the same time. I have something that I need to hand in on Monday, but the system in which I can contact a teacher from my coorespondence course will probably only get me a reply by Wensday. I was wondering if you could help me to determine what they want in this question:

h=-5t^2+30t+10

d) Determine the instantaneous velocity of the flare at t = 3 seconds by using the slopes of secants. (3 marks: 1 for table, 2 marks for slopes)

Now, I am wondering, for the slopes of secants, are they implying that I should graph them or just figure them out in my table?

it seems to me that they want you to compute them in your table. that is, compute them otherwise and place the values you get in a table. if they wanted you to graph they would have explicitly said so, and you would have phrases like "graph", "draw", "diagram" in your question. besides, it would not be very accurate graphing this, even if you had graphing paper.