ShmoopTube

00:03

You look like you could use a little more shmoop in your life…

00:06

What is the slope of a line that is parallel to the graph of 8x + 4y = 5?

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Here are the potential answers…

00:19

So… what is this question asking?

00:20

Can we take this jumbled mess and mold it into something we can work with?

00:24

Namely… into the form of y = mx + b? Let’s give it a shot.

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First we need to switch the order of the terms.

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When we subtract 8x from both sides, we get 4y equals negative 8x plus 5.

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Then we need y to stand alone – so we divide both sides by 4

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to get y = -2x plus 5 fourths.

00:49

Our slope is negative 2.

00:51

But the question asks for the slope of the line PARALLEL to this one.

00:55

Oooh – trick question, kinda. Parallel lines all have the same slope.

00:59

So… nice try, but we’re onto you, Mister Problem Maker.

01:03

Our slope is negative 2, meaning the line slopes downward like this…

01:09

So our answer is A. As in, "Avalanche."

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