Finding the Slope of a Line from the Equation 1

This is going to be a lot like what we just did at the end of the last section.

So far, I've shown you how to find the slope from the graph and when you have two points...

But, what if you just have the equation?

If it's like this guy, then it's a snap!

y = ( 7 / 2 )x - 3 ... Since it's in y = mx + b form, we can easily see that the slope is 7 / 2

So, what if it's in standard form like this?

Well, it's not too bad. We just do a little algebra and get it into
y = mx + b form.

To do this, we solve for y:

2x + y = 5, subtract 2x from both sides, which gives y = -2x + 5 ... The slope is -2

TRY IT:

Find the slope using algebra:

Finding the Slope of a Line from the Equation