A cardiac monitor is used to measure the heart rate of a patient after surgery. It compiles the number of heartbeats after t minutes. When the data in the table are graphed, the slope of the tangent line represents the heart rate in beats per minute.

The monitor estimates this value by calculating the slope of a secant line. Use the data to estimate the patient€™s heart rate after 42 minutes using the secant line between the points with the given values of t.
(a) t = 36 and t = 42 (b) t = 38 and t = 42
(c) t = 40 and t = 42 (d) t = 42 and t = 44
What are your conclusions?

Transcribed Image Text:

36 42 t (min) 38 40 44 Heartbeats 2530 2661 2806 2948 3080