Question

9. Determine the equation of a line that passes though the points (3,-4) and (6,2). [​

Answer 1

Answer:

y=2x-10

Step-by-step explanation:

First of all, remember what the equation of a line is:

y = mx+b

Where:

m is the slope, and

b is the y-intercept

First, let's find what m is, the slope of the line...

The slope of a line is a measure of how fast the line "goes up" or "goes down". A large slope means the line goes up or down really fast (a very steep line). Small slopes means the line isn't very steep. A slope of zero means the line has no steepness at all; it is perfectly horizontal.

For lines like these, the slope is always defined as "the change in y over the change in x" or, in equation form:

So what we need now are the two points you gave that the line passes through. Let's call the first point you gave, (3,-4), point #1, so the x and y numbers given will be called x1 and y1. Or, x1=3 and y1=-4.

Also, let's call the second point you gave, (6,2), point #2, so the x and y numbers here will be called x2 and y2. Or, x2=6 and y2=2.

Now, just plug the numbers into the formula for m above, like this:

m=

2 - -4

6 - 3

or...

m=

6

3

or...

m=2

So, we have the first piece to finding the equation of this line, and we can fill it into y=mx+b like this: