Three critical areas of instruction in Math 8 are:

1. Formulating and reasoning about expressions and equations, including modeling an association in bivariate data with a linear equation, as well as solving linear equations and systems of linear equations

2. Grasping the concept of a function and using functions to describe quantitative relationships

3. Analyzing two- and three-dimensional space and figures using distance, angle, similarity, and congruence, and understanding and applying the Pythagorean Theorem

(California Mathematics Framework, 2013, p. 371)