Question

Miriam is studying the growth rate of bacteria. She puts the data in the following table, where x represents minutes and y represents the number of bacteria.

x

0

1

2

3

y

0.08

0.4

2

10

Which type of function is represented by the data in the table?

(1 point)
Responses

exponential decay
exponential decay

exponential growth
exponential growth

linear
linear

quadratic

Answer 1

To determine the type of function represented by the data in the table, we can analyze the values more closely.

The data points are:

- (0, 0.08)
- (1, 0.4)
- (2, 2)
- (3, 10)

When examining the y-values as x increases, we can observe that they seem to grow rapidly:

- Between x = 0 and x = 1, y changes from 0.08 to 0.4 (approximately a 5x increase)
- Between x = 1 and x = 2, y changes from 0.4 to 2 (approximately a 5x increase again)
- Between x = 2 and x = 3, y changes from 2 to 10 (again a significant increase)

This pattern suggests that the data may follow an exponential growth function, as the increases are multiplicative rather than additive, which is characteristic of exponential functions.

Thus, based on the provided data, the answer is:

**exponential growth**