Question

How do you graph `y=2x^2-8x-1` by plotting points?

Answer 1

Make a table of `x` and `y`.

Try plugging in an `x`-value: a good one to start with is always `0`:

`y=2(0)^2-8(0)-1`
`y=0-0-1`
`y=-1`

Thus, when `x=0`, `y=-1`, so we can plot the point `(0,-1)` on our graph.

Continue to find points and graph them:

Eventually, you should see the shape of the graph starting to form.

Connect the dots, and you should see this:

graph{2x^2-8x-1 [-26.94, 24.38, -11.3, 14.36]}