# Mid-point of a line segment [closed]

I have the question "Find the coordinates of the mid-point of the line segment joining each pair of points (-5/4, 2) and (-1, -3/5) " I wanted to know the different ways to solve this and could you please show your working so that I understand how to tackle these types of questions better thanks.

## closed as off-topic by JonMark Perry, 5xum, heropup, Pierre-Guy Plamondon, Daniel W. FarlowSep 14 '16 at 23:07

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• please show us your working first !!! Don't expect us to solve your homework problems for you. – Dark_Knight Sep 14 '16 at 11:30
• ((-5/4 + -1) / 2 , (3 + -3/5) / 2) – Dan Khan Sep 14 '16 at 11:32
• i'm just not sure if this is the right way to solve the question. – Dan Khan Sep 14 '16 at 11:33
• Dan-- In your comment the 3 should be a 2 in second coordinate. – coffeemath Sep 14 '16 at 11:35
• Dan--Now in the edited version there aren't two points anymore. – coffeemath Sep 14 '16 at 11:38

Well, there is the aptly-named midpoint formula, written as $$\left( \frac{x_1 + x_2}{2}, \frac{y_1 + y_2}{2} \right)$$ While this may look complicated, it really just means taking the mean (average) of the $x$ coordinates and the $y$ coordinates.
To do the calculation, you'd do $$\frac{-\frac{5}{4} + -1}{2}$$ for the x-coordinate and $$\frac{2+-\frac{3}{5}}{2}$$ for the y-coordinate. This comes to $$-\frac{9}{4}*\frac{1}{2}$$ (remember multiplying by $\frac{1}{2}$ is the same as dividing by 2) which then gives $$-\frac{9}{8}$$ for the x-coordinate. You can do the y-coordinate.