Question

sam bought a new fertilizer spreader for his yard. It has a dial on the handle that adjusts the flow of the fertilizer. The dial setting is from 0 to 10. He has learned that if he sets the dial to 10, then one bag of fertilizer will cover only 600 square feet of his yard. The setting varies inversely with area it will cover. How many square feet should one bag cover if the dial is set to 6?

Answer 1

let the dial setting be x and the square footage covered be y

for an inverse variation, xy = k

you are already given that, if x = 10, y = 600

so xy = (10)(600) = k

once you have the k value, you can find the square footage for x = 6 by plugging in k and x back into the inverse variation equation, and solving for y