When you are given a real world problem that must be solved, you could be given numerous aspects of the equation. If you are given slope and the y-intercept, then you have it made.
You have all the information you need, and you can create your graph or write an equation in slope intercept form very easily.
However, most times it's not that easy and we are forced to really understand the problem and decipher what we are given. It could be slope and the y-intercept, but it could also be slope and one point or it could be just two points.
If you are given slope and a point, then it becomes a little trickier to write an equation. Although you have the slope, you need the y-intercept.
You have enough information to find the y-intercept, but it requires a few more steps. Let's look at an example.
That was a little tougher only because we needed to add the extra step of finding the y-intercept. Since you are so awesome at solving equations, I'm sure this wasn't too painful.
Now let's look at a real world applications of this skill. Here you will have to read the problem and figure out the slope and the point that is given. The slope is going to be your "rate" and the point will be two numbers that are related in some way.
Ok, so if you are given slope and a point, then you need to substitute for m (slope), x, and y and then solve for b! Once you have m (slope) and b (y-intercept), you can write an equation in slope intercept form.
Now you are ready to solve real world problems given two points. It's not the hard - I promise.
Writing Equations Unit
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