Finding an Equation from a Line

Today we had a look at finding equations from a line. We do already have the skills to do these, but we will do some examples as practice.

If you remember earlier in the unit, we looked at finding an equation when we were given just two points. These examples can be found in the booklet from Monday the 17th of August. We also looked at some of these questions in section 4 of the worksheet. If you do not remember this, go back and have a look at these.

Sometimes we will often be given a line on a Cartesian plane and asked find the equation of this. To do this we need to pick 2 points and use these to find the equation in the same way as I mentioned in the paragraph above.
When we pick the two points, it is important to remember to pick easy points to work with. We don't want to be picking points that are decimals or anything like this. When we pick the points, try and make sure they are nice easy whole numbers, as this will make our lives a whole lot easier.

So for example, we can see on the graph below that I have chosen 2 nice easy points with whole numbers. There is one on the left, which is (-2, 4) and the other on the right which is (2, -1). We can then use our skills we have from previous lessons to find the equation of the line.

You should now have all the skills required to work through the whole first worksheet on linear equations. I need this finished by Wednesday the 26th of August, so we can then move onto the next topic in this unit on linear algebra. 

As always, if you have any questions feel free to comment on this post, or email or chat to me in person.