How do you calculate slope from a table if the tables change in y or change in x has an inconsistent interval?

Question

Example:

  X     Y

  1     3.2

  2     4.9

  3     6.7

  4     10.1

  how would you calculate the change in y, is there a way to? Thanks.

Answer 1

Slope is always change in y divided by change in x.  This is a simple matter if the function is linear because the ratio never changes, but the function described in your table is not linear.  The best you can do is calculate an average slope over a given range of x values.  For example, over the range of x=1 to x=4, slope = 6.9 / 3 = 2.3.