What is the slope of a vertical line?

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Multiple Choice

What is the slope of a vertical line?

Explanation:
The slope measures how steep a line is by taking the ratio of rise to run. For a vertical line, the run (change in x) is zero because x doesn’t change. Dividing by zero isn’t defined, so the slope can’t be expressed as a finite number; it is undefined. A vertical line can be written as x = constant, and it does not represent a function y = f(x) because it fails the vertical line test. By contrast, a horizontal line has rise 0, giving slope 0, and a line with slope 1 would rise and run equally, which describes a diagonal, not vertical.

The slope measures how steep a line is by taking the ratio of rise to run. For a vertical line, the run (change in x) is zero because x doesn’t change. Dividing by zero isn’t defined, so the slope can’t be expressed as a finite number; it is undefined. A vertical line can be written as x = constant, and it does not represent a function y = f(x) because it fails the vertical line test. By contrast, a horizontal line has rise 0, giving slope 0, and a line with slope 1 would rise and run equally, which describes a diagonal, not vertical.

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