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Quadrants of the coordinate plane

The coordinate plane is divided into four sections, called quadrants. Quadrant I has positive x and y values, Quadrant II has negative x and positive y, Quadrant III has negative x and y, and Quadrant IV has positive x and negative y. The point (-7,7) is in Quadrant II. Created by Sal Khan and Monterey Institute for Technology and Education.

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Video transcript

In which quadrant is the point negative 7 comma 7 located? So let's just review what a quadrant is. A quadrant are each of the four sections of the coordinate plane. And when we talk about the sections, we're talking about the sections as divided by the coordinate axes. So this right here is the x-axis and this up-down axis is the y-axis. And you can see it divides a coordinate plane into four sections. We call each of these sections quadrants. This one over here, where both the x-values and the y-values are positive, we call the first quadrant. And we use the Roman numeral I. Then if we kind of move counterclockwise around the coordinate plane, this quadrant where the x-values are negative and the y-values are positive, we call this the second quadrant. I could write it. We call this the second quadrant. Then we go down here where both the x-values are negative and the y-values are negative. We call this the third quadrant, once again using Roman numerals. Then finally the quadrant where the x-values are positive but the y-values are negative, we call this the fourth quadrant. So let's see which quadrant the point negative 7 comma 7 is located. So there's two ways to think about it. You could just say, look, we have a negative x-value. Our x-value is negative, so we're going to move to the left. So we're going to be on this side. We're going to be on this side right here of the coordinate plane. Just by the fact that the x-value is negative, we're going to be either in the second or the third quadrant. Now, we know that the y-value is positive. We know that the y-value is positive. So if the x-value is negative and the y-value is positive, we're going to land someplace right over here in the second quadrant. The other way to think about it is you could literally just plot this point and see that it falls in the second quadrant. So let's do that. If x is negative 7. So that's negative 1, negative 2, negative 3, negative 4, negative 5, negative 6, negative 7. Did I do that right? 1, 2, 3 4, 5, 6, 7. So this is x is negative 7. And then we have to go up 7 because y is equal to positive 7. So 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 7. So the point negative 7 comma 7 is right over here, clearly lies in the second quadrant.