Question 1 of 5
A city planner models a straight bike path on the -plane. The path passes through the point and crosses the -axis at . What is the distance from the origin to the point where the path crosses the -axis?
Explanation
First find the slope of the line through and :
So the equation of the line has the form . Substitute the point :
That means the line crosses the -axis at . The distance from the origin to is
So the correct answer is .
Concept summary
Use slope from two points to write the line equation, find the intercept, then use the distance formula. When a point lies on the -axis, its distance from the origin is the absolute value of its -coordinate.