Question

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Answer 1

you will need to find a center, as well as the distances between the stated points

Answer 2

maybe .. what is halfway between -10 and 4 ?

Answer 3

yes, so would you agree that the center of this thing is between (-10,1) and (4,1): (-3,1)?

Answer 4

k

Answer 5

how do we use this in the equation we want? do you recall?

Answer 6

no im lost on this honestly

Answer 7

your material should have something like this:

given a center point (h,k); we can build the equation using (x-h) and (y-k)

Answer 8

the general equation of an ellipse looks like this:\[\frac{(x-h)^2}{a^2}+\frac{(y-k)^2}{b^2}=1\]

Answer 9

the variables for a and b can be determined using the height and width of the ellipses vertex

Answer 10

so a i use -3 and b i use 3?

Answer 11

not quite, lets define the parts like this:

from the points (-10,1) and (4,1)
\[2a=|-10|+|4|\]

from the points (-3,-1) and (-3,3)
\[2b=|-1|+|3|\]

Answer 12

or we could have gone with the largest minus the smallest ...

\[2a = 4 - (-10)\]
\[2b = 3 - (-1)\]

Answer 13

a=7, b=2

Answer 14

good, so a^2 = 49, and b^2 = 4

Answer 15

taking our center as (-3,1)

\[\frac{(x-(-3))^2}{7^2}+\frac{(y-(1))^2}{2^2}=1\]

Answer 16

so thats the answer then correct?

Answer 17

in essense yes; you might want to simplify it to fit whatever format it gets graded by

Answer 18

such as?

Answer 19

taking away any unneeded parathesis, squareing out the ^2 parts, stuff like that

Answer 20

ok ty

Answer 21

yw