how do you get the answer for this equation?

Question

How do you find the answer to this equation?

-10x+3y=5

Answer 1

There are two ways you can solve this problem. You can either solve for "x" or you can solve for "y". I'll show you both.

Also, these types of problems usually tell you x equals a number or whatever-- that may not be the case, but i'd confirm they didn't give you additional "conditions". Let's start:

METHOD 1: SOLVING FOR X

Step 1: Subtract 3y from sides to get -10x=5-3y

Step 2: Divide both sides by -10 to get x=(5/-10)-(3y/-10)

Step 3: Clean it up: x=(-1/2)+(3y/10)

METHOD 2: SOLVING FOR Y

Step 1: Add 10x to both sides to get 3y=5+10x

Step 2: Divide 3 from both sides to get y=(5/3)+(10x/3)

Step 3: Done

Always remember, what you do to one side, you do to the other. Your goal is to get "x" or "y" by itself. Which method you go with depends on what the problem wants.

Answer 2

Another method is graphical. To illustrate solve for y getting y = (10/3) x + ( 5/3).

Now graph this guy which will be a straight line with slope of 10/3 and a y intercept of (0, 5/3).

So, the solution is a set of all points on that line. Example (0, 5/3) is a solution as is (1 , 5), etc.

So the "solution" is the set of points that satisfy the equation each x-y pair representing and locating a point on the line.