Uphill Battles

Shoot! I meant to have this to you before now. Apologies that I'm just now getting it out there, as if any of you are just hanging on this blog to learn how to do slopes. 

If you find a problem in your homework that says something like this...

Draw a line with a slope of 4/5 that passes through point (1, 4). Give the coordinates for another point on this line.

...let me show you what to do.

First, find the point on the coordinate plane. Put a dot there.

Now that you know where to start, simply move up four (rise over run) and to the right five. Our slope is 4/5, so that's what we do.

Don't forget, a line goes in both directions for infinity, so it's best to draw the line longer than just a few centimeters. Don't be lazy.

For another point that goes through this line, I would just use the second point that you found. In this case, it's (8, 6). Of course, if you did draw the line (using a straightedge) in both directions, you could also use any coordinates where the line passes through. But you have to make sure that the line passes through an exact coordinate, so it's best to find a good spot for that.

I'll try hard not to wait so long before the next lesson!