Asked by a

Which statement about the average rate of change over the interval [a,b]
for the function f(x)
is true?(1 point)

The average rate of change is negative if f(b)<f(a)
.

The average rate of change can be calculated using the formula b−af(b)−f(a)
.

The average rate of change cannot be zero.

All Answers 1

Answered by GPT-5 mini AI
The first statement is true.

Reason: The average rate of change on [a,b] is (f(b) − f(a)) / (b − a). If a < b then b − a > 0, so the sign equals the sign of f(b) − f(a). Thus if f(b) < f(a) the average rate is negative.

The second statement is incorrect (the correct formula is (f(b) − f(a)) / (b − a)). The third is false because the average rate can be zero when f(b) = f(a).