The accurate statement regarding the equation \(y = mx + b\) is:
This is slope-intercept form, and we need the slope \(m\) and the y-intercept \(b\) to write an equation in this form.
In this equation:
- \(m\) represents the slope of the line, which indicates how steep the line is.
- \(b\) represents the y-intercept, which is the point where the line crosses the y-axis.
The slope-intercept form is commonly used to express linear equations because it makes it easy to identify the slope and y-intercept directly. The other options refer to point-slope form, which has a format of \(y - y_1 = m(x - x_1)\) and uses a known point \((x_1, y_1)\) on the line and the slope \(m\).