The line AB has equation 3x + 5y = 7. What is the gradient of AB?
The gradient of a line in the form y = ax + b, where a and b are some numbers, is the number a.
So we need to get the equation 3x + 5y = 7 into the above form, with y on one side on its own!
We first move the 3x to the right hand side by subtracting 3x from both sides, giving us
5y = -3x + 7.
We then divide both sides by 5 to give us
y = (-3/5) x + (7/5).
So our number a in this case is -3/5, which is our gradient!
BK
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