How should I solve this?

Question

Change to slope intercept form, find y intercept FIRST and then solve for x intercept

1.) 3x-2y= 6

2.) 2x+5y=10

Answer 1

Hi Jessenia

Fun!

So does the problem want us to change it to slope intercept form BEFORE finding the y-intercept? Because we could. Finding intercepts of lines is usually easy, because the intercepts happen where one of your variables is equal to zero. For example, the y-intercept lives at the address (0,y), and the x-intercept lives at the address (x,0). I'll get to that in a second, but I think they want us to change to slope intercept form first. We can do this with algebraic properties, solving for y.

3x-2y=6

To isolate y, I will subtract 3x from both sides.

-2y=-3x+6

To isolate y, I will then divide both sides by -2

y=(-3/-2)x+6/(-2)

Simplify

y=1.5x-3

Because this is in slope intercept form, the y-intercept must be the b value, -3. Easy!

To find the x value (which lives at (x,0), just plug in 0 for y and solve for x.

Which would actually be even simpler in the original standard form equation

3x-2y=6

3x-2(0)=6

3x=6

x=2

Please reach out if these needs clarification. I'll leave the second problem as an exercise for you, since it's identical steps.