How do you find the slope and intercept of y-3/5x=-1/4?

1 Answer
Mar 9, 2016

Slope: 3/5
y-intercept: -1/4
x-intercept: 5/12

Explanation:

A way to find the slope and intercepts of a linear equation is to transform it into the slope-intercept form. Generally the slope-intercept form looks like this:

y = mx + b

Where m is the slope and b is the y-intercept.

In this case, the given is y - 3/5x = -1/4, so we just have to transpose the term with the x variable into the other side of the equation.

[Solution]
y - 3/5x = -1/4
y = 3/5x - 1/4

Now that we have the slope-intercept form, we know from the equation that...

Slope -> m = 3/5
y-intercept: -1/4

As for the x-intercept, we know that when the graph crosses the x-axis then the value of y is 0. So in order to compute for the x-intercept, we only need to evaluate the equation with y = 0.

[Solution]
y - 3/5x = -1/4
0 - 3/5x = -1/4
-3/5x = -1/4
3/5x = 1/4
x = (1/4)(5/3)
x = 5/12