Question

graph the line: y=-x-2

Answer 1

This is in slope intercept form already, so can you identify the slope? What is y when x is 0?

Answer 2

-2?

Answer 3

Look at the coefficient of x. Slope intercept form is y = mx + b where m is the slope of the line.

Answer 4

what do you mean by the coefficient?

Answer 5

The coefficient is the constant in front of the variable x.

Answer 6

so in that case it would be what? sorry im not good at slope

Answer 7

For instance, if you have an equation like: \[-5x^3 + 15x^2 + 5\]
Then the coefficients are -5, 15, and 5.

Answer 8

So if you have -x, the coefficient is an assumed (-1) since -1 * x = -x

Answer 9

oh ok so -3 then?

Answer 10

No, you're trying to subtract the 2 also. In slope intercept form, the slope is simply -1. This comes from the (-1)x term.

Answer 11

so on the x axis its -1?

Answer 12

Right, so this means that (depending on what terminology your class is using) the rise/run = -1.

Answer 13

but i have to plot it here i show the pic

Answer 14

Correct. I'm not going to just draw it for you. But you can see that given the equation that the slope is -1, correct?

Answer 15

ya

Answer 16

So this means at any point on the line, that to get to the next point you either must move up (+)1 and left (-)1, or down (-) 1 and right(+) 1. It doesn't matter which. Does it make sense?

Answer 17

does this work?

Answer 18

I can't tell exactly what you're doing. This may not be the graph of that PARTICULAR line, but it appears to have a -1 slope. Now to figure out what's going on, you can easily just plug 0 in for x and see what y is.

Answer 19

oh ok thank you!

Answer 20

Do you see? Let's see what you got.