Question

Billy found the slope of the line through the points (2,5) and (-2,-5) using the equation

2- (-2)
5- (-5) = 2/5. What mistake did he make

Answer 1

Slope is calculated as the change in y over the change in x so you would need to do 5- (-5) which turns the negative sign to a positive making it 5+5=10 and the same thing with the 2s 2-(-2)=4 so the answer would be 10/4 or 5/2. Billy did the reciprocal.

Answer 2

The slope of the line is the inverse of the answer he gave, 5/2.

Explanation:

In this case, the slope equation for a line is:

`m(y2-y1)/(x2-x1)`

Analyzing the description, we can appreciate that Billy the x values by the y values, that is incorrect, because the equation is as shown before. So the slope of the line is the inverse of the answer he gave, 5/2.