Example 3
Problem
A small business has a debt of $500, 000 incurred from start-up costs. It predicts that it can pay off the debt
at a rate of $85, 000 per year according to the following equation governing years in business (x) and debt
measured in thousands of dollars (y).
y = -85x + 500
Graph the above equation and use your graph to predict when the debt will be fully paid.
Solution
Again it is clear from the function we wrote that this scenario represents a linear function. First, we start with
creating a table of values:
