<h3>
Answer: (-1, -6)</h3>
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Explanation:
Let's focus on the x coordinates of each point for now.
- Point A has x coordinate -7
- Point N has an unknown x coordinate. We leave it as x for now.
- Point M has x coordinate -4
The idea to find the midpoint's coordinates is to add up the endpoints coordinates and divide by 2.
So we'll add up -7 and x, then divide by 2 to get the midpoint x coordinate of -4
In short we have: (-7+x)/2 = -4
Solving for x leads to...
(-7+x)/2 = -4
-7+x = 2*(-4)
-7+x = -8
x = -8+7
x = -1
This is the x coordinate of point N
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We'll repeat the same idea and steps for the y coordinates
- Point A has y coordinate 4
- Point N has y coordinate unknown. Leave it as y for now.
- Point M has y coordinate -1
So,
(4+y)/2 = -1
4+y = 2(-1)
4+y = -2
y = -2-4
y = -6
This is the y coordinate of point N.
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In summary, we found that point N is located at (-1, -6)
Point A is (-7,4) and point N is (-1,-6)
If you apply the midpoint formula to those two points, you should find the midpoint to be M(-4,-1) which helps confirm the answer.
Another way to confirm the answer is to compute the distance from A to M, which finds the length of segment AM. Do the same for segment MN. You should find that both segments are the same length.
The diagram below is a visual way to check. Starting at point A and moving down to point B, we moved 5 units. Then go from B to M and you'll move 3 units to the right. This pattern "down 5, right 3" is applied again when we go from M to C to N in that order. This effectively creates two congruent triangles (ABM and MCN) which can lead to proving AM = MN.
In short: the red piece of the graph is the same length as the blue piece; this confirms we have the correct answer.