Three algebra 1 students are comparing how fast their social media posts have spread. Their results are shown in the following table:

Student Amber Ben Carter

Description Amber shared her photo with 3 people. They continued to share it, so the number of shares increases every day as shown by the function.

Ben shared his post with 2 friends. Each of those friends shares with 3 more every day, so the number of shares triples every day.

Carter shared his post with 10 friends, who each share with only 2 people each day.

Write an exponential function to represent the spread of Ben's social media post.

Question

Oscar Hull

Mathematics

4 January, 22:14

Three algebra 1 students are comparing how fast their social media posts have spread. Their results are shown in the following table:

Student Amber Ben Carter

Description Amber shared her photo with 3 people. They continued to share it, so the number of shares increases every day as shown by the function.

Ben shared his post with 2 friends. Each of those friends shares with 3 more every day, so the number of shares triples every day.

Carter shared his post with 10 friends, who each share with only 2 people each day.

Write an exponential function to represent the spread of Ben's social media post.

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Answers (1)

Know the Answer?

Seth Terry · Answer 1

Since the question is asking for Ben's specific function, we only need to pay attention to the information given for him: Ben shared his post with 2 friends, who each share with 3 more friends every day. So, the function will be: f (x) = 2 (3^x) (with the x as an exponent). The first number is 2, because that's the initial number of friends Ben shares his posts with. Since this number triples every day, 2 will be multiplied times 3. Since the sharing with 3 friends each repeats every day, the exponent (x) will be the number of days that this occurs.