Decision Making Connection Career Choices. When deciding what career to pur- sue, one concern is often salary. If you plan to first earn a degree, that concern shifts to what the salary will be several years in the future. Future predictions are made on the basis of past and current trends. If a trend appears linear, a linear function can be used as a model. Suppose that you are interested in becoming a registered nurse or a speech language pathologist. The following table lists the annual median salary for sev- eral years for each profession. Assume that both sala- ries can be modeled as a linear function of time. (Use after Section 2.6.) 2. Use the 2006 data and the 2015 data for speech language pathologists to form a linear function p that can be used to estimate the annual median salary years after 2006. Round coefficients to the nearest one. 3. Examine the functions from Exercises 1 and 2. a) Which profession had a higher salary in 2006 (t = 0)? b) Which profession had a higher rate of growth in salary? 4. Form the function (p - r). What does this func- tion represent? 5. According to your models, how much more on average, will a speech language pathologist earn than a registered nurse in 2018? 6. Research. Find past and current salaries for one or more professions in which you are interested. If the trend appears linear, form a linear function that could be used to model the salary. Then use the model to predict the salary in the year that you will graduate from college. Registered Nurse 2006 $59,710 2008 62,450 2015 67,490 Speech Language Pathologist 2006 $57,700 2008 62,930 2015 73,410 Data: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 1. Use the 2006 data and the 2015 data for registered nurses to form a linear function r that can be used to estimate the annual median salary t years after 2006. Round coefficients to the nearest one. Decision Making Connection Career Choices. When deciding what career to pur- sue, one concern is often salary. If you plan to first earn a degree, that concern shifts to what the salary will be several years in the future. Future predictions are made on the basis of past and current trends. If a trend appears linear, a linear function can be used as a model. Suppose that you are interested in becoming a registered nurse or a speech language pathologist. The following table lists the annual median salary for sev- eral years for each profession. Assume that both sala- ries can be modeled as a linear function of time. (Use after Section 2.6.) 2. Use the 2006 data and the 2015 data for speech language pathologists to form a linear function p that can be used to estimate the annual median salary years after 2006. Round coefficients to the nearest one. 3. Examine the functions from Exercises 1 and 2. a) Which profession had a higher salary in 2006 (t = 0)? b) Which profession had a higher rate of growth in salary? 4. Form the function (p - r). What does this func- tion represent? 5. According to your models, how much more on average, will a speech language pathologist earn than a registered nurse in 2018? 6. Research. Find past and current salaries for one or more professions in which you are interested. If the trend appears linear, form a linear function that could be used to model the salary. Then use the model to predict the salary in the year that you will graduate from college. Registered Nurse 2006 $59,710 2008 62,450 2015 67,490 Speech Language Pathologist 2006 $57,700 2008 62,930 2015 73,410 Data: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 1. Use the 2006 data and the 2015 data for registered nurses to form a linear function r that can be used to estimate the annual median salary t years after 2006. Round coefficients to the nearest one
