Question

In the ordered pair (12, -7) what is the abscissa and what is the ordinate?

Answer 1

`12` is abscissa and `-7` is ordinate.

Explanation:

When we write an ordered pair say `(x,y)`,

the first number `x` is abscissa and denotes how far the point lies to the left (if it is negative) or right (if it is positive) of origin and

the second number `y` is ordinate and denotes how much above the point is above the real number line (if it is positive) or below the real number line (if it is negative).

Here the point is `(12,-7)` and hence `12` is abscissa and `-7` is ordinate. The point is indicated in the graph below.

graph{(x-12)^2+(y+7)^2=0.05 [-15.58, 24.42, -9.84, 10.16]}