Atalent competition on television had five elimination rounds. after each elimination, only one-third of the contestants were sent to the next round. the table below shows the number of contestants in each round of the competition.

x12345
f(x)243812793

compute the average rate of change of f(x) from x = 1 to x = 4 and describe what it represents.

Given the number of the contestants in each round:

X      1     2     3    4    5

F(x) 243  81  27   9     3

The rate of change can be calculated using y2-y1/x2-x1 formula. From rounds 1 to 4 the rate of change are

-162, -54, -18. And the average of it is -78 and it represents the average rate at which the number of contestants changed from the first round to the fourth round.

1: -2 3/4, -2 1/2, -14, 0, 3, 8 1/3

2: -4, -3, -2 1/2, -2 1/4, 3 1/4,

step-by-step explanation:

$12. that is my answer.