In the context of the function \( y = 80x + 2 \) modeling Carla's road trip, where \( y \) represents her speed in miles per hour, the variable \( x \) can be interpreted as the number of hours traveled driving. Since the function models a scenario that includes two hours of stops, it is reasonable to deduce that \( x \) describes the total hours of driving (excluding the stop time). Therefore, the quantity that describes the x-axis is the number of hours spent driving.
If you want to include the stops in a more comprehensive manner, you might consider that the total time includes both driving and stopping, but for the specific context of the driving speed modeled by this equation, \( x \) directly represents the driving time.
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