Two questions to ask:
1. Does V(x) grow or decay?
2. When putting 4(0.65)^x vs 4(1.35)^x into the Y= of the TI-83/4, does the table look like the one above?
Hopefully the student will know that the number in parentheses (the growth/decay factor) determines if it is growth or decay but through the graphing calculator, they can figure it out, get the right answer and earn 2 points!

Can use the TI-83/4 to figure this one out!
The zeros are the values of x that make f(x) or y equal to zero.
Answer (1) looks like this:  only 1 zero at x = -3 which can be seen on both the graph and the table

Answer (2) looks like this with 3 zeros but only one of them is an integer value (both the table and the graph show that (-4,0) is a point

Let’s try answer (3):

Here we can see that on the table when x = -3 y = 0 and also when x = 0 and x = 4, y is also equal to zero.  Looking at the graph we can see that the 3 x-intercepts are integer values of -3, 0 and 4.  That’s it!

Pay close attention to the signs!! We need to look for the factors with the opposite sign to ‘zero it out’!  This can be a bit counterintuitive as when -3 is a solution then the factor is (x + 3), as -3 makes x + 3 = 0.  When 4 is a solution, the factor must be (x – 4)  rather than  (x+4) as plugging in 4 would not result in zero.

Using the TI-84 makes this an easy question — we can see that the two functions — a linear and an absolute value intersect once at (2,4)…then we have to read clearly to see if the question is asking for x or y.  Get the Math and get 2 more points!!