Question

On a snow day, Leah created two snowmen in her backyard. Snowman A was built to a height of 36 inches and Snowman B was built to a height of 60 inches. The next day, the temperature increased and both snowmen began to melt. At sunrise, Snowman A's height decrease by 3 inches per hour and Snowman B's height decreased by 9 inches per hour. Let AA represent the height of Snowman A tt hours after sunrise and let BB represent the height of Snowman B tt hours after sunrise. Graph each function and determine how tall each snowman is when they are the same height.

Answer 1

let's let t = # of hours

snowman A decreases by 3 inches per hour, so it decreases 3t for t hours. subtracting this from the original height we get A = 35 - 3t

same logic with snowman B, B = 60 - 9t

like the problem says, graph both functions on the same graph and look at the point where the two lines intersect, then report the height at that point.