Question

If you wanted a really steep hill for your roller coaster, would you use the graph of y = –2x2 + 6 or
y = (-1/10)x2 + 6?

Answer 1

If you have a graphic calculator, or you could use this one online -> http://my.hrw.com/math06_07/nsmedia/tools/Graph_Calculator/graphCalc.html then you can play around with the coefficients in front of the x^2 and see how they are depending on each other.

You will see that you clearly want to use the first one for a steep hill.

\[y=-2x^2+6\]
The +6 only "lifts" the function up by 6 units.

Answer 2

Thank you!!