Question

How do you find the slope and intercept of `4x – 8y = 8`?

Answer 1

Transforming the equation in `y=mx+q`.

Explanation:

When you have the equation in the format

`y=mx+q` you call `m` the slope and `q` the intercept.
So we need to transform the equation in that format.

`4x-8y=8`

first of all we put the terms with the `y` on the left and all the other terms on the right, remembering that when we make the "jump" of the `=` we have to change the sign.

`-8y=-4x+8`

Then we want to have only the `y` on the left, without the `-8`. To obtain it we divide left and right for `-8`.

`\frac{-8y}{-8}=\frac{-4x}{-8}+\frac{8}{-8}`

and doing the calculation, paying attention to do all the signs correctly, we obtain

`y=1/2x-1`.

We are now in the initial format where `m=1/2` and `q=-1`.
So the slope is `1/2` and the intercept is `-1`.