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Exercises Graphs and straight lines

Example 4.63 from Elementary Algebra, 4.6 Find the Equation of a Line

Find the Equation of a Line: example 4.63

Find an equation of a line that contains the points $(−3, −1)$ and $(2, −2)$ . Write the equation in slope–intercept form.

Work it out on paper first. Then open the solution one step at a time, and stop as soon as you can finish on your own.

Solution
Since we have two points, we will find an equation of the line using the point–slope form. The first step will be to find the slope.

Find the slope of the line through (−3, −1) and (2, −2).

Choose either point.

Substitute the values into $y - y_{1} = m (x - x_{1}) .$

Write in slope–intercept form.

Your turn

The book's Try It right after this example: same idea, new numbers. Only the answer is given.

Find an equation of a line containing the points $(−2, −4)$ and $(1, −3)$ .

How did it go?

PreviousFind the Equation of a Line: example 4.62 Next Find the Equation of a Line: example 4.64

From Elementary Algebra (1st edition) by OpenStax (Rice University), section 4.6, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Original at openstax.org. We split the solution into steps; the words, numbers and figures are the book's. OpenStax doesn't endorse this site.