Question 1203630
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In my experience, I have seen many students plug numbers into the formula for finding the slope and getting the numbers in the wrong places, which of course leads to wrong answers to the problems.<br>
I strongly encourage students to have a mental picture of the two given points and calculate the slope using the "rise over run" definition.<br>
It's simpler if you always move left to right (in the positive direction).  So given the two points (2,5) and (-3,-1) I would picture starting at (-3,-1) and moving to (2,5).<br>
In moving from (-3,-1) to (2,5), I move 5 units in the positive x direction; in doing so I move from -1 to 5, a difference of 6, in the y direction.  Then "rise over run" gives me 6/5 -- and I don't need to worry if I got all the numbers in the right places in a formula.<br>
Once you have the slope of 6/5, there are many ways to get to the equation of the line.  For me, the easiest is to use the slope-intercept form of a linear equation "y=mx+b" with one of the given (x,y) points to find b.<br>
y = mx+b
5 = (6/5)(2)+b
5 = 12/5+b
b = 5-12/5 = 25/5-12/5 = 13/5<br>
ANSWER: y = (6/5)x+13/5<br>