ShmoopTube

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And here's your shmoopy question of the day.

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What is the slope of the line shown in the graph below?

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Here are the potential answers...

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Hit pause, try it yourself.

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Do we remember that whole y = mx plus b thing? That m is slope and slope is rise over run?

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Well, let's hope so.

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There's a pretty easy brute force way

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to figure this one out -- a new process called counting.

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Start here and count over as many squares until the line intersects cleanly a solid

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line above it.

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And we go 3 over to the right -- and then we can rise 1.

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Note that the slope goes from left to right in an upward or positive direction --

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so the slope is POSITIVE.

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Note also that slopes can be zero -- if they flat. Rise to run then is just 0 over

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... well anything, really. 0 over anything is 0.

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What if the line is vertical?

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Then you have rise of... whatever... over run of... 0.

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Can we ever divide by 0?

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Well, not if we don't want to get an eraser to the head from our math teacher. No, we can't.

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Anyway, in this case the slope, or rise over run, is 1 over 3...

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...and it's answer C. Done.

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It's okay to be excited that we figured this thing out. Go ahead... give a little yodel.

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