How do you graph #y=5x-5/2# using slope and intercept?

1 Answer
Feb 16, 2018

See below.

Explanation:

Use the general equation of a line:

#color(red)(y=mx+b)#

Here, #m# is the slope of the line. It states that, for every change in the #x# coordinate by #1# unit, the #y# coordinate changes by #m# units. Its formula is:

#(y_2-y_1)/(x_2-x_1)#.

Here, #m=5#.

#b# is the #y#-intercept, the value of #y# when the line intercepts the #y# axis. Here, the #b=-5/2#

Through the observations above, we find that:

  • The line gets to #x=0# at #y=-5/2#
  • After that, for every #1# unit increase in the #x# value, the #y# value increases by #5# units.

So at #x=0#, #y=-5/2#

At #x=1#, #y=5/2#

At #x=2#, #y=15/2#

At #x=3#, #y=25/2#

And so on and so forth. We can use Socratic's graphing utility to make sure of so:

graph{5x-5/2 [-10, 10, -5, 5]}

We can see that our observations are true.