Question

A pair of equations is shown below:

Answer 1

If you graph y=7x-9 and y=3x-1 the two lines will intersect at one point.  That is how you graphically "solve" the system of equations.

Both of these lines are of the form y=mx+b where m is the slope and b is the y-intercept.

So for y=7x-9, the slope is 7 and the y-intercept is -9

For  y=3x-1, the slope is 3 and the y-intercept is -1

....

The solution for this system occurs when both coordinates are equal to each other so we can say:

7x-9=3x-1  subtract 3x from both sides

4x-9=-1  add 9 to both sides

4x=8  divide both sides by 4

x=2, making y=3x-1 become:

y=3(2)-1=6-1=5, so the solution to the system of equations is:

(2,5)