Posted by Sheila on November 10, 2002 at 17:46:30:
Help, please. I have a word problem concerning insect larvae survival. Soon after they hatch, they must search for food. The survival rate depends on many things and environmental temperature is one of them. For a certain speces of insect, a model of the number of larvae N(T) that survive the searching period is given by N(T) = -0.6T^2 + 32.1T - 350 where T is the temperature in degrees Celsius. I have to answer the following questions:
a. At what temperature will the maximum number of larvae survive and round my answer to the nearest degree.
b. What is the maximum number of surviving larvae and round my answer to the nearest whole number.
c. Find the x-intercepts to the nearest whole number, for the graph of this function.
d. Write a sentence that describes the meaning of the x-intercept in the context of this problem.
I am totally clueless as to how to work this in order to answer these questions. Any help would be appreciated.