Question

What is the slope of the line that passes through the points (2, 8) and (6, 12)? A. –5 B. –1 C. 1 D. 5

Answer 1

The slope is an expression of the change in y after a change in x.
Usually, this is expressed with a ratio, with the difference in y first.

The formula for slope is written as
`m=(y_2-y_1)/(x_2-x_1)`.
Our points are
`(x_1,\ y_1)` and
`(x_2,\ y_2)`.

Of course, the difference is just subtracting one from the other, but you'll get either a positive or negative value depending on which way you subtract. That's all fine and dandy if you handle the differences in x and y in the same way like in the formula, because any unwanted negatives get cancelled out...it's not important.

Anyways, let's plug our points (2, 8) and (6, 12) into the slope formula.


`(12-8)/(6-2)=(4)/(4)=(1)/(1)`

Any number divided by 1 stays the same, so we can leave out the /1 and just have our slope be 1.