Objective:

• ​Determine the slope of a line given two points

How do we determine the slope of a line given two points on the line?

Given two points,

we can determine the slope of a line by using the slope formula.  Earlier, you found out that:

Further, you learned that the change in y is found from subtracting the y coordinates and that the change in x is found from subtracting the x coordinates.  This leads us to the slope formula:

We will plug in two given points into the slope formula to determine the slope of the line.

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Example

Given the following two points, determine the slope:

Note - I could have labeled my first point as (x2,y2) and my second point as (x1,y1) but I always like to start with (x1,y1).  You should get the same answer for slope regardless of which point you labeled first.

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Horizontal and Vertical Lines

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Practice

Determine the slope given the following two points:

Click here to check your answer.