General

[quote=Yerenth]
True it's good practice to learn concepts and what not. I just like getting the answer in the shortest work possible. I tried to tutor a friend in calc but it didn't turn out so well coz I just skip all the work and fly to the answer[/quote]

Yeah, that's kinda what my diff eq solutions manual likes to do (I was ready to pull my hair out because it assumes so much is already implied...). So practicing the full extent of the work starting in pre-algebra makes it easier to see what books do when they skip steps later on. The idea is that eventually, if you had to, you could teach yourself with just a book... More or less

Sometimes I try explaining the concepts for a long time, because if you understand the ideas or the hints to remembering things, there's really not much memorization necessary

Anyway, @ TS, I would have helped you but you did get a good few posts of help already and I really gotta get some sleep :I

@DrHye:
True it's good practice to learn concepts and what not. I just like getting the answer in the shortest work possible. I tried to tutor a friend in calc but it didn't turn out so well coz I just skip all the work and fly to the answer

@TheJawk @TheYerenth
The fact that he'll end up with the same equation doesn't really matter when it comes to practicing the concepts. The main ideas are to realize that parallel lines have the same slope and how to go from point-slope form to slope-intercept form. The redundancy really doesn't matter to or bother the kids learning these ideas for the first time (I'm an algebra 1 tutor, and if stuff like this happens, we wouldn't bring attention to it until after they got their answer and finished all the work for the problem)

The equation you gave goes through that point already

-3 = (1/2)4 - 5

so the answer for my problem could it be y=2x-11? which would convert to 2x-y=11 in standard form

@oznaru Oh... sorry. Normally, when my teachers ask us to write an equation, we write it in standard form.

Parallel just means the slope is equivalent.
y-4=1/2(x+3)

Never mind i messed up the x and y's

i need it in y=mx+b form, and can you please show all of your work, like by each step?

EDIT:This was for first comment

M'kays, here's what I would do (Im taking Algebra I Honors right now):

It's parallel to y=1/2x-5.
That means the slopes are the same.
In the slope-intercept form, y=mx+b, m represents the slope.
in y=1/2x-5, the slope must be 1/2.

Use the point-slope form to determine an equation in standard form (use point slope if you have one coordinate pair and the slope)

point-slope form: y - y1 = m ( x - x1 )
y1 and x1 represent the points in the coordinate pair.

So...
y+3=1/2(x-4)
y+3=1/2x-2 multiply both sides by negative two so you remove fractions and have a negative coefficient (-1) in front of the x-value
-2y-6=-x+4

x-2y=10 is your answer because standard form is ax+by=c and a must be positive.

Hope this helps you.

[b]EDIT[/b]: you can check your answer by substituting y and x for the points in the coordinate pair.

(4)-2(-3)=10
4+6=10
10=10

[b]EDIT 2[/b]: Okay, let me show you how to convert my equation into slope-intercept form.

x-2y=10
x=10+2y
2y=x-10
y=1/2x-5

Wait... the two lines are coincidental o.o o.o