Can you find slope with one point

Determine slope given one point and y-intercept. Ask Question. Asked 6 years, 3 months ago. Active 6 years, 3 months ago. Viewed 11k times. Moritz 1, 1 1 gold badge 10 10 silver badges 25 25 bronze badges. Madison Madison 3 3 gold badges 8 8 silver badges 27 27 bronze badges.

Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. Each x coordinate on a line has an associated y coordinate. Label your points x 1 , y 1 , x 2 , y 2 , keeping each point with its pair. Continuing our first example, with the points 2,4 and 6,6 , label the x and y coordinates of each point. Plug your points into the "Point-Slope Formula" to get your slope. Simply plug in your four points and simplify: Original Points: 2,4 and 6,6. Understand how the Point-Slope Formula works. Recognize other ways you may be tested to find slope.

Method 3. Review how to take a variety of derivatives from common functions. Derivatives give you the rate of change or slope at a single point on a line.

The line can be curved or straight -- it doesn't matter. Think of it as how much the line is changing at any time, instead of the slope of the entire line. How you take derivatives changes depending on the type of function you have, so review how to take common derivatives before moving on.

Review taking derivatives here The most simple derivatives, those for basic polynomial equations, are easy to find using a simple shortcut. This will be used for the rest of the method. Understand what questions are asking for a slope using derivatives. You will not always be asked to explicitly find the derivative or slope of a curve.

You might also be asked for the "rate of change at point x,y. You could be asked for an equation for the slope of the graph, which simply means you need to take the derivative.

Finally, you may be asked for "the slope of the tangent line at x,y. Take the derivative of your function. You don't even really need you graph, just the function or equation for your graph. Following the methods outlined here , take the derivative of this simple function. Plug in your point to the derivative equation to get your slope. The differential of a function will tell you the slope of the function at a given point. Check your point against a graph whenever possible.

Know that not all points in calculus will have a slope. Calculus gets into complex equations and difficult graphs, and not all points will have a slope, or even exist on every graph. Whenever possible, use a graphing calculator to check the slope of your graph. If you can't, draw the tangent line using your point and the slope remember -- "rise over run" and note if it looks like it could be correct. Tangent lines are just lines with the exact same slope as your point on the curve.

To draw one, go up positive or down negative your slope in the case of the example, 22 points up. The point slope form equation is:. Do you see the similarity to the slope formula? What you might not know is that it's not the only way to form a line equation. The more popular is the slope intercept form :. The truth is that this is nothing else than a more precise point-slope form. A straight line intercepts the y-axis in a point 0, b.

If you choose this point - 0, b , as a point that you want to use in the point-slope form of the equation, you will get:. In the two graphs below, you can see the same function, only described with two different forms of a linear equation:. The slope of a line is 2. It passes through point A 2, What is the general equation of the line? Let's say you got a puppy. When you got him he was 14 pounds. The slope is 3. The example below shows the solution when you reverse the order of the points, calling 5, 5 Point 1 and 4, 2 Point 2.

Notice that regardless of which ordered pair is named Point 1 and which is named Point 2, the slope is still 3. What is the slope of the line that contains the points 3, The slope is The correct answer is. Put the coordinates into the slope formula consistently:. You have interchanged the rise and the run. Advanced Question.

What is the slope of a line that includes the points and? It looks like you inverted the rise and the run. Use the formula to find the slope. It looks like you subtracted either the y or x coordinates in the wrong order. Make sure you subtract , then , and then calculate the slope. Using the formula for slope, , you found that. Finding the Slopes of Horizontal and Vertical Lines. But there are two other kinds of lines, horizontal and vertical. What is the slope of a flat line or level ground?

Of a wall or a vertical line? No matter which two points you choose on the line, they will always have the same y -coordinate. You can also use the slope formula with two points on this horizontal line to calculate the slope of this horizontal line. The slope of this horizontal line is 0.

So, when you apply the slope formula, the numerator will always be 0. Zero divided by any non-zero number is 0, so the slope of any horizontal line is always 0.

How about vertical lines? In their case, no matter which two points you choose, they will always have the same x -coordinate. So, what happens when you use the slope formula with two points on this vertical line to calculate the slope?

Using 2, 1 as Point 1 and 2, 3 as Point 2, you get:. But division by zero has no meaning for the set of real numbers.

Because of this fact, it is said that the slope of this vertical line is undefined. This is true for all vertical lines— they all have a slope that is undefined.

The slope is 0, so the line is horizontal. Which of the following points will lie on the line created by the points and?

Notice that both points on the line have the same x -coordinate but different y -coordinates. That makes it a vertical line, so any other points on the line will have an x -coordinate of The points and form a vertical line, so any other point on that line will have to have an x -coordinate of Try drawing a quick sketch of the points and.

They form a vertical line, so any other points on the line will have an x -coordinate of Slope describes the steepness of a line. The slope of any line remains constant along the line.