
Without completing the squares, find out the length of major and minor axes.
Any shortcut method to find out the length of major and minor axes of an ellipse from its standard 2nd degree equation?

Without completing the squares, find out the length of major and minor axes.
why do you need a shortcut in the case which itself is short.
a shortcut will be required in the case where the equation of the ellipse is like ax2+by2+2λxy +.. something like that where you have to rotat e the axis by tanθ=2h/a-b
@swordfish
Firstly find the centre of the ellipse which here comes out to be (-5,2)
Now, put x=-5 + r cos(theta)
y=2 + r sin(theta) in the eqn of the ellipse,
then maximising r we can get length of major axis= 2 * r(max)