How do you find the slope of the line passing through the points (1,6) and (10, -9)?

1 Answer
Maxwell
May 1, 2017

#"slope" = -15/9#

Explanation:

To find the slope, you need to use the following formula

#Slope = (Deltay)/(Deltax)->(y_2-y_1)/(x_2-x_1)#

Slope basically tells us a little about the line on our graph. How steep is it? Is it negative or positive? Is there a zero slope (horizontal line)?

You take whatever you are given and work with that to solve for the unknown. Here, we are given 2 points on a graph.

#color(white)(aaaaaaaaaaaa)(1, 6)#
#color(white)(aaaaaaaaaaaa)(10, -9)#

The first number corresponds to the point on the #"x axis"#. The second number corresponds to the point on the #"y axis"#. We can arbitrarily decide which is our #(x_1, y_1)# and which is our #(x_2, y_2)#

#color(white)(aaaaaaaaaaaaa)color(red)((1, 6)->(x_1, y_1))#
#color(white)(aaaaaaaaaaaaa)color(blue)((10, -9)->(x_2, y_2))#

#Slope = (Deltay)/(Deltax)->(y_2-y_1)/(x_2-x_1)->((color(blue)"-9"-color(red)"6"))/((color(blue)"10"-color(red)"1")) = color(orange)(-15/9)#

#Answer: "slope" = color(orange)(-15/9)#

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