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Identifying an Ellipse from its Equation

When analyzing a general conic section equation, the graph represents an ellipse if the equation contains both x2x^2 and y2y^2 terms that share the same sign but have different coefficients. For example, the equation 9x2+4y2+56y+160=09x^2 + 4y^2 + 56y + 160 = 0 represents an ellipse because the squared terms (9x29x^2 and 4y24y^2) are both positive but have different numerical coefficients.

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Updated 2026-05-26

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Ch.11 Conics - Intermediate Algebra @ OpenStax

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