Another way to view slope, as we saw with formulas, is look at the change in y over the change in x given two points. In many word problems, the information you will be given will translate to "Find the slope between these two points". It then will become a matter of: Can you see what the two points are in the given context? If you can, write them down, then use your usual slope formula. For the following word problem, you will use the given information to give two ordered pairs of the form ( x , y ) , then use this to identify the slope along with units. The small town of Beaufort, South Carolina has experienced a linear change in its population. In the year 2004 , the population was 17200 . In the year 2008 , the population was 21200 . Give the two ordered pairs in the form ( x , y ) , where x is the number of years since 2004 . List the two ordered pairs separated by a comma: