Answer:
In the year 2010, the population of the city was 175,000
Step-by-step explanation:
If we rewrote this as a linear expression in standard form (it is linear, btw), it would look like this:
[tex]P(t)=\frac{11}{2}t+175[/tex]
The rate of change, the slope of this line, is 11/2. If the year 2010 is our time zero (in other words, we start the clock at that year), then 0 time has gone by in the year 2010. In the year 2011, t = 1 (one year goes by from 2010 to 2011); in the year 2012, t = 2 (two years have gone by from 2010 to 2012), etc. If we plug in a 0 for t we get that y = 175,000. That is our y-intercept, which also serves to give us the starting amount of something time-related when NO time has gone by.
