Quadratic and exponential word problems – level 3

𝑚𝑖
1. The fuel economy of a vehicle, in miles per gallon (𝑔𝑎𝑙), can be modeled by a quadratic function of

the vehicle's speed. A team of engineers is testing a new vehicle for fuel economy and finds that its
𝑚𝑖 𝑚𝑖
maximum fuel economy of 30𝑔𝑎𝑙 is achieved at a speed of 48 miles per hour ( ℎ𝑟 ). In high speed tests,

𝑚𝑖 𝑚𝑖
the fuel economy is found to be 14𝑔𝑎𝑙 at a speed of 88 ℎ𝑟 . What is the expected fuel economy at a

𝑚𝑖
speed of 58 ℎ𝑟 ?
A. 29 miles per gallon
B. 29.9 miles per gallon
C. 30.1 miles per gallon
D. 31 miles per gallon

2. A physical education teacher is planning to outline two adjacent identical rectangular areas for a new
game that students will be learning. If the boundaries of this "court" must be marked with a 5050 yard
roll of tape, what is the maximum area of one of the smaller rectangular spaces in square yards?

3. Over the course of a year, from April to the following March, a business owner sees a rise and fall in
her monthly profits, which can be approximated by a quadratic function. A maximum profit
of $12,000 is recorded during the month of September. By January, that figure has dropped to $4,000.
According to these numbers, approximately how much profit, in dollars, did the business owner
record during February of that year? Note, negative profit just indicates a loss.

A. −$12,500
B. −$500
C. $500
D. $12,500

4. Akoni, a painter, painted a circular helicopter landing pad one color. Next she painted over a 3meter
radius circle in the center, in a different color. If the second coat of paint covered an area half the size
of the first coat, which of the following is most nearly the radius of the landing pad?
A. 2 meters
B. 3 meters
C. 4 meters
D. 6 meters

5. The width of a rectangular box is 2cm less than its length. The height of the box is 8cm. Which of
the following functions represents the surface area, S, in square centimeters, of the box with side
length x?
A. S=x2+14x−16
B. S=2x2+28x−32
C. S=16+2x−x2
D. S=32+4x−2x2

6.

Yusef is designing a system to load potatoes onto trucks at a potato farm. The potatoes have an initial
vertical speed of v feet per second and a starting height of h0 feet. During a fall of t seconds, the potatoes'
heights can be modeled by a quadratic function of the form h(t)= h0−vt−16t2. The data in the table above
shows the height of a potato after t seconds of free fall. How many seconds does it take for a potato to
drop to a height of 1.44 feet?

7. A rocket is moving upward when its fuel runs out. The rocket enters into freefall, continuing to move
with an upward velocity at first. The rocket's height, h, in feet, t seconds after running out of fuel can
be modeled by a quadratic function of the form h(t)=−16t2+bt+c. This particular rocket has a height
of 356 when the fuel runs out. It then reaches a height of 550 feet 2 seconds later. What is the rocket's
height, in feet, 10 seconds after the fuel runs out?

8.

The golden ratio is a controversial number believed by many to describe various natural structures such as
vein and stem structures in plants and even DNA. It is often expressed as the positive solution to the above
quadratic equation. Rounded to the nearest hundredth, what is the golden ratio expressed as a decimal?
9.
For a particular company, the data in the table above shows the profit, P, corresponding to x hundred
dollars spent on advertising last month. It is determined that the profit can be modeled by a quadratic
function of the form P(x)=c+bx−0.5x2. If 20 hundreds of dollars is spent on advertising, how much profit
is expected to be made, in hundreds of dollars?

10. A real estate purveyor purchases a 60,000 square foot (ft2) warehouse and decides to turn it into a
2
storage facility. The warehouse's width is exactly 3 of its length. What is the warehouse's width?
Round your answer to the nearest foot.

11.

A design engineer is measuring the drag force (i.e. the force resisting motion) on a robotic submarine. As
𝑚
the submarine moves through the water at v meters per second ( 𝑠 ), it experiences a drag force

of F newtons (N). The table above represents the design engineer's measurements. If the drag force can
be modeled by a quadratic equation of the form F=bv+cv2, what value of speed, in meters per second,
corresponds a drag force of 120N? Round your answer to the nearest tenth of a meter per second.

12. Hung Lam plans to enclose a rectangular area for his chickens in his backyard using the sides of his
apartment building for 2 of the sides, as seen in the figure at left. If Hung Lam has exactly 40 feet of
chicken wire, what is the largest area, in square feet, he can enclose for his chickens?
13.

Billiards Rec., Inc. has developed a new foam to be used in dart boards and is testing its dart-stopping
ability. The data in the table above shows the test darts' average penetration distance, d, in millimeters (mm),
𝑚
when thrown at a speed of approximately v meters per second ( 𝑠 ). The stopping distance of the darts is a

quadratic function of their speed and can be modeled by a function of the form d=av2 + c. If a dart was
𝑚
thrown at a speed of 9 𝑠 , which of the following best approximates the dart's penetration distance, in

millimeters?
A. 0.3 millimeters
B. 4 millimeters
C. 25.9 millimeters
D. 28.3 millimeters

14.

The above table gives a particular rocket's height, in feet (ft) above sea level, t seconds after takeoff. The
rocket's height can be modeled by a quadratic function of the form h(t)=at2+c. How many feet above sea
level is the rocket 2 seconds after takeoff?

15. A helicopter hovers over a mountain top, and a professional snowboarder drops onto the snow 25 feet
below. The snowboarder's height off the ground, in feet, while falling can be modeled by a quadratic
function of seconds of falling, t, which has the form h(t)=d−at2. If the snowboarder is still 21 feet
above the ground after falling for 0.5 seconds, how long does the entire 25 foot drop take? Round
your answer to the nearest hundredth of a second.

16. The length of an 8000 square foot rectangular gymnasium is 20 feet greater than its width. What is
its width, in feet?

17. When a ball strikes a wall it spends a certain amount of time in contact with the wall before
rebounding away. While in contact with the wall, the ball compresses, and the separation between the
wall and the ball's center t seconds after contacting the wall can be modeled by a quadratic function.
The maximum separation, 0.0285 meters, occurs when the ball first contacts the wall. If the ball is
only in contact with the wall for 0.06 seconds, and the minimum separation is 0.006 meters, which
of the following functions best models the separation, d, between the wall and the ball's center?
A. d(t)=25(t−0.03)2+0.006
B. d(t)=25(t−0.06)2+0.006
C. d(t)=0.0285(t−0.03)2+0.006
D. d(t)=0.0285(t−0.06)2+0.006

18. Drake and Cleo are looking for a location to open their new yoga studio. A fellow studio owner
suggests a location that will fit 28 students in a 756 square foot area. Assuming that each student has
a spot x feet wide and 3 times as long, what is the length, in feet, of the space they are allotting to
each student?
A. 1 feet
B. 3 feet
C. 9 feet
D. 27 feet

19. V=At
A confectioner is applying a sugar coating to some spherical candies. The above equation gives a
good approximation of the volume of coating, V, in cubic millimeters (mm3), needed for a coating that is
t mm thick on a candy with a surface area of A mm2. For a coating volume of 20πmm3 and a coating
thickness of 0.2mm, which of the following best approximates the radius of these candies? Use π≈3.14,
and round your answer to the nearest hundredth of a millimeter. The surface area of a sphere can be
calculated as A=4πr2.

20.

The growth rate of the solar PV industry has consistently fallen between 41% and 48% every year
since 2007. On the table at left, the size of the solar PV industry based on its minimum (41%) and
maximum (48%) growth rate is shown. Which of the following estimates the size of the solar PV industry
in 2022 based on the minimum growth rate?
A. 55 gigawatts
B. 340 gigawatts
C. 490 gigawatts
D. 660 gigawatts

21. A biologist puts a certain number of DNA strands into a machine, which uses a process called PCR
cycling. Each PCR cycle, the machine creates a copy of every DNA strand. All of the DNA strands
(the original DNA strands and their copies) remain together in the machine, ready for more PCR
cycles. If a biologist puts 1 thousand DNA strands into the machine and runs it for 44cycles, how
many DNA strands will be in the machine at the end of the process, in thousands?

22.

The number of medical publications that mention evolutionary medicine each year is shown at left,
with the data for 2010 and 2011 missing. Based on the entire trend of the data, how many publications
mentioned evolutionary medicine in 2011?
A. 70
B. 160
C. 480
D. 530

23. Average number of transistors on computer chip each year

The number of transistors on an average computer chip has increased exponentially over time, as shown
above. Assuming this pattern will continue until the number of transistors on a computer chip
reaches 10 million, in what year will that chip be produced, to the nearest 10 years?

24. In the following list of equations, the numbers on the left are written using the base-5 number system,
and, therefore, are denoted with a subscript of 5. The numbers on the right are written in our normal
base-10 number system. For example, the base 5 number 100 is equal to the base-10 number 25.
15=1
105=5
1005=25
1,0005=125
10,0005=625
If 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,0005=5p, then what is the value of p?

25.

The table above shows how the cost, c, in dollars per megabyte, for computer memory decreased as
the year, y, increased. If we expect the cost for computer memory to continue decreasing steadily, which
of the following equations best models the relationship?
A. c=−0.4⋅(y−2000)2
B. c=0.4⋅(y−2000)2
C. c=90⋅0.61(y−1985)
D. c=90⋅1.61(y−1985)

26. The amount of methane, p, in parts per billion, in the atmosphere from 1760 to 2000, relative to the
year, y, can be modeled by an exponential curve of the form p = 740+ a(y−1760), where a is a constant.
The amount of methane did not reach 800 parts per billion until about 1890, but then went all the way
up to 1800 parts per billion around 1980. Which of the following could be the value of a?
A. 0.032
B. 1.032
C. 2.032
D. 3.032

27. At a party, there is a cake of length c, as shown below. Each person at the party takes a slice of cake
which is exactly half the length of whatever cake is remaining. Once people have taken s slices, a(s)
represents the total length of cake taken. Which of the following equations computes a(s) given s?
 1
A. a(s)=c⋅[1−(2)s]

1
B. a(s)=c⋅[1−(𝑠 )2]

1
C. a(s)=c⋅(2)s

1
D. a(s)=c⋅(𝑠 )2

28. Miguel numbers the 50 keys on his musical keyboard from left to right, starting at 0. Miguel then
uses an oscilloscope to measure the frequency, f, in Hertz, of the sound waves emitted when key
number k is pressed. The table below shows the measured frequency of some of the keys. Which of
the following equations best models the relationship between the key number and the key frequency?

A. f=65.5⋅2k
𝑘
B. f=65.5⋅212
C. f=65.5(k+1)
𝑘
D. f=65.5+(12)