What is the pattern in words if you get paid 15 dollars in 1 hour, 22 dollars in 2 hours, 29 dollars in 3 hours?

1 Answer
MeneerNask
Jan 3, 2015

You can say:
You get $15 for the first hour and $7 for every next.

Or you can say:
You get $8 to get started plus $7 for every hour

You may want to translate that last stement into a lineair equation:

y = 8 + 7.x = 7x+8

Where y = payment ($), and x = hours worked.
7 is called the slope;
It tells you how y changes for every change in x
and 8 is the so-called y-intercept:
where the graph crosses the y-axis (the y-value for x=0)
(of course, in real life you wouldn't get paid that $8 if you made 0 hours! but this is maths)

With the equation you can easily work out your payment for any number of hours worked.

Related questions
See all questions in Words that Describe Patterns
Impact of this question
3277 views around the world
You can reuse this answer
Creative Commons License