It was lunch time for the eighth graders and everyone was gone besides a few students who wanted to help out the math teacher, Mrs. Grasso. Everyone was very smart and understood the work she gave except one peculiar boy, Carlos. He always sat in the back and never paid attention in class. Instead he looked out the window and stared at the sky.

It was time for an upcoming test on slope and y-intercept, but Carlos had no clue. He wasn't even sure he learned this in class, yet, until he heard his classmate, Abby, explain the Rise over Run method to find slope. Carlos was listening.

"Don't you just love to learn about new things!" shouted Abby, "I can't wait for the test on slope. It's a piece of cake!" she said. All of her enthusiasm about slope made Carlos feel dumb and left out. He needed to learn slope and y-intercept quickly!

Carlos decided to get a math book and started to study without any of his classmates noticing. However, no matter how hard he tried Carlos just did not understand it! He kept memorizing the slope equation but was just too hard for him to remember. That made Carlos feel stupid and he got angry.

"I give up! I'll just have to flunk the test and get it over with!"

"Give up?" screamed Abby from across the room. "You cannot give up on an easy topic like this, Carlos!" Grab that book and we'll learn this slope and y-intercept business together! Once I've taught you how to remember you'll be great at this in no time! He was embarrassed about Abby noticing his problem. However, Carlos listened and did as she told.

"Carlos, the slope is always m in the equation and it's always by the variable x. Think of it like the slope having a friend right next to it. As usual the y-intercept is always b. So it'll be y= slope(friend) + y-intercept. Just make sure you remember it like y=mx+b. It's that simple," Abby explained.

"Wow!" said Carlos, "That actually makes me remember the equation now!" Carlos was thrilled but he still was upset. "I understand it now but I still don't know how it looks on the graph or how I can find the slope and the y-intercept."

"No problem! That's the easiest part of this lesson!" Abby said. Carlos was even more excited and was glad Abby was there to teach him. She began and said, "The way to find slope is to use the rise over run method!" "The rise over run method? I'm still a little bit shaky on that part, Abby." Carlos said.

"To find the rise over run (or the slope) on a graph you have to count the spaces by first going up (rising) then count the spaces across (run). After you count the spaces, you put them into slope fraction form. In this case, the slope would be 3 over 1 which is automatically 3." Carlos was proud that he understood and smiled and told Abby "I got it!"