Tara's car travels about 25 miles on one gallon of gas. She has between 10 and 12 gallons of gas in the tank.
List the independent and dependent quantities
In this situation, the independent quantity is the number of gallons of gas in the tank, while the dependent quantity is the number of miles Tara's car can travel.
To list the independent and dependent quantities, we can use a table:
Number of Gallons of Gas (Independent) | Number of Miles Traveled (Dependent)
---------------------------------------------------------------
10 | 250
11 | 275
12 | 300
In this table, we can see that as the number of gallons of gas increases, the number of miles Tara's car can travel also increases. Therefore, the number of gallons of gas is the independent quantity, and the number of miles traveled is the dependent quantity.
An independent variable is the potential stimulus or cause, usually directly manipulated by the experimenter, so it could also be called a manipulative variable.
A dependent variable is the response or measure of results.