Find the slope and y-intercept for the equation -2x + y = -4. Then, use them to draw the graph.
To identify the slope and y -intercept from the equation, the equation must be in the form y = mx + b (slope-intercept form). To write our equation in this form, we must solve the equation for y. To do so, we simply add 2x to each side of the equation.
-2x + y = -4 Original equation
y = 2x – 4 Add 2x to each side
The equation is now in slope-intercept form, so the slope must be 2 and the y -intercept – 4. The graph, therefore, crosses the y -axis at (0, -4) . Since the slope is 2, we can let the rise = 2 and the run = 1 and find a second point on the graph. The graph is shown in Figure 5.