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Question 78910: How do I plot the point with coordinates (3, -5) on a graph?
Answer by mathdoc314(58)   (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!
well this indeed is a very hard question if you have never seen a graph before!
First, in the point (3,-5) you see two numbers. The first number is 3 and the second number is -5. The fist number is known as the x coordinate and the second number is known as the y coordinate.
It helps in the first place to be familiar with a number line. If you wanted to plot just the number 3 on a number line you would probably start by drawing a horizontal line and putting some kind of mark on the number 3
---|---|---|---|---|---|---*---|---|---|---|---|
-3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5
Here you have two numbers and on your piece of paper or your monitor or your wall or your floor or your ceiling or a notebook or some other flat surface you have two different dimensions, horizontal and vertical:
Y
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- 2
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- 1
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---|---|---|---|---|---|---*---|---|---|---|---| X
-3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5
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- -1
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- -2
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Here I have drawn a horizontal number line for x, and a vertical number line for y
To plot the point (3,-5) you find the 3 on the x axis and the -5 on the y axis and you find the point on the flat surface that agrees with both of those places:
Y
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- 2
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- 1
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---|---|---|---|---|---|---X---|---|---|---|---| X
-3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5
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- -1 .
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- -2 .
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- -3 .
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- -4 .
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X -5 . . X <-- X=3 and Y=-5
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- -6
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