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  1. Show the solution to question 1

    (a) Check the hypotheses, then list the candidates. is a polynomial, so it is continuous on the closed interval and the Extreme Value Theorem promises an absolute maximum and minimum. Differentiate and factor:

    exists everywhere and vanishes at and , both inside .

    Evaluate at the critical numbers and the endpoints. , , , .

    Comparing : the absolute maximum is and the absolute minimum is . Both sit at endpoints; the interior critical numbers give only a local maximum () and a local minimum (). A method that checked critical numbers alone would have got both answers wrong.

    (b) Remove the absolute value first. is continuous, being the composition of the continuous function with a polynomial, so the theorem applies on . Since and throughout , the sign of is the sign of :

    On , , which is zero at . On , , never zero. At the left-hand derivative is and the right-hand derivative is , so does not exist. The critical numbers in are therefore and .

    Values: , , , . The absolute maximum is and the absolute minimum is .

    (c) The equation has the single solution , and that is the local maximum, not the minimum. The minimum lives at the corner , where the graph is a V: the tangent slope jumps from to without ever being . Fermat's Theorem only says when exists, so it is silent at a corner. The definition of a critical number has a second clause precisely for this: a number in the domain where does not exist is also a critical number, and the Closed Interval Method must test it.

  2. Show the solution to question 2

    (a) Hypotheses, secant slope, then solve. is continuous on and differentiable on , with defined for every . The Mean Value Theorem applies. The average rate of change is

    Solve : gives , so . It lies in , and it is the only solution because is one-to-one on . So .

    Sanity check: the tangent at has slope , matching the secant.

    (b) Proof. Fix and apply the Mean Value Theorem to on . The hypotheses hold: is continuous on and differentiable on , with . So there is a in with

    Since we have , and since , multiplying gives . Hence .

    The theorem did the whole job: it replaced the unknown value by a slope we could bound.

    (c) Proof by contradiction, via Rolle. Let and suppose had three distinct real roots . A polynomial is continuous and differentiable everywhere, and , so Rolle's Theorem gives a in with . Likewise gives a in with . Since , these are two distinct zeros of .

    But , and means , which has exactly one real solution, , because is one-to-one on . Two distinct zeros of is impossible, so three distinct roots of is impossible: has at most two real roots.

    The bound is attained: with , the equation has the two real roots .

  3. Show the solution to question 3

    (a) Quotient rule, then the sign chart.

    The denominator is always positive, so exists everywhere and its sign is the sign of . Critical numbers: and .

    Sign chart. On take : . On take : . On take : . So decreases on , increases on , and decreases on .

    First Derivative Test: at the sign goes to , a local minimum, . At it goes to , a local maximum, .

    (b) Watch for the point where fails to exist.

    when , that is . does not exist at , and is defined, so is in the domain and counts. Critical numbers: and .

    Sign chart. On take : . On take : . On take : . So decreases on , increases on , decreases on .

    At : to , a local minimum, . This is a cusp — as and as — which Fermat's Theorem could never have located. At : to , a local maximum, .

    (c) Work on the interval first. There for and for , so by the First Derivative Test for Absolute Extrema, is the absolute maximum of on . For the remaining , the numerator is negative and the denominator positive, so . Hence for every real , with equality only at . (By the same argument applied to , or by the oddness , the absolute minimum is .)

  4. Show the solution to question 4

    (a) and , which exists everywhere and vanishes at .

    Sign chart for : at , ; at , ; at , . By the Concavity Test, is concave upward on and on , and concave downward on . The sign changes at both candidates, so both are inflection points: and , giving and .

    (b) Product rule twice: , and

    Since always, the sign of is the sign of : negative for , positive for . So is concave downward on , concave upward on , and the sign change at gives the single inflection point .

    (c) and . Candidates: and .

    Sign chart: the factor is positive except at , so the sign of is the sign of on either side of . At : . At : . At : .

    At the sign is negative on both sides — no change — so is not an inflection point even though . At the sign changes from to , so is the only inflection point. is concave downward on and concave upward on .

    What does happen at : is positive just left of and negative just right of , so by the First Derivative Test has a local maximum there, — a critical number where the Second Derivative Test would have been silent.

  5. Show the solution to question 5

    (a) Three separate errors.

    Step 3 draws a conclusion the test does not offer. The Second Derivative Test has exactly two clauses, and . When it is inconclusive — it says nothing at all, in either direction. The student has read “the test does not say maximum or minimum” as “the test says neither”. It so happens that is not an extremum (see (b)), so this is the step with a true conclusion and no valid argument.

    Step 4 confuses a necessary condition with a sufficient one, and then mis-solves the equation. An inflection point requires to actually change sign; is only where to look, exactly as is for extrema. Worse, the student solved instead of : the equation has three solutions, and , and two candidates were never examined.

    Step 5 confuses local with absolute. A local maximum only beats its neighbours. The Extreme Value Theorem, which is what guarantees absolute extrema, needs a closed interval, and is not one. Indeed , and as , so no value of is the largest.

    (b) Use the First Derivative Test, which always decides. . For the factor is positive and is negative, so on and on . There is no sign change at , so has no local extremum there: it is decreasing through the origin, with a momentarily horizontal tangent.

    (c) Inflection points. , zero at , , . Sign chart, using the factors and (the latter negative exactly for ):

    on : ; on : ; on : ; on : .

    The sign changes at all three candidates, so all three are inflection points. Their heights: , and is odd, so

    Absolute extrema. None. as and as , so is unbounded in both directions. (On a closed interval the story changes: on , comparing , and , the absolute maximum is at and the minimum at — both at endpoints.)

  6. Show the solution to question 6

    (a) Domain: , so all . Symmetry: , so is odd and the graph is symmetric about the origin. Intercepts: only when the numerator , and , so the origin is the only intercept.

    Vertical asymptotes. At the numerator is while the denominator vanishes. As , and , so the denominator and ; as the denominator and . At the numerator is . As , and , so the denominator and ; as the denominator and . (The second pair also follows from the first by oddness.)

    Horizontal asymptote. Dividing by , as , so is the horizontal asymptote in both directions.

    (b) Quotient rule:

    The numerator is strictly negative for every and the denominator is strictly positive on the domain, so at every point of the domain: is never zero, and the only places fails to exist, , are not in the domain, so they are not critical numbers. There are none.

    By the Increasing/Decreasing Test, is decreasing on each of the three intervals , and separately. It is not decreasing on their union: but

    The test's hypothesis is “on an interval”, and the domain is three intervals with two gaps; the Mean Value Theorem cannot be applied across a gap, so nothing links the values on one side to those on the other.

    (c) Write and differentiate:

    Since , the sign of is the sign of times the sign of . On : , concave down. On : , concave up. On : , concave down. On : , concave up.

    vanishes only at , where it changes sign, so is an inflection point. The concavity also flips across , but those are not in the domain and are not inflection points — there is no point of the curve there.

    (d) The sketch. Three branches, decreasing on each. Left branch, : enters from the far left just below (values are negative there: , ), bends concave down, and plunges to at the dashed line . Middle branch, : descends from just right of , concave up, through , then straight through the origin with slope — the inflection point, mark it — now concave down, through , and down to at . Right branch, : descends from , concave up, through and , settling onto from above. Draw , and dashed. Check the odd symmetry at the end: rotating the picture a half-turn about the origin should map it onto itself.

  7. Show the solution to question 7

    (a) Set up. By symmetry of the parabola about the -axis, put the upper vertices at with . Then the width is , the height is , and the objective is

    Constraint: the vertices must be above the axis, . Domain: , a closed interval, so the Closed Interval Method applies ( is a polynomial, hence continuous).

    Solve. , zero at (the root is outside the domain). Compare: , , and . The maximum area is , attained at .

    Answer the question asked. The rectangle is wide and tall. Sanity check: .

    (b) Set up. Let the base have side and the box height . Constraint: , so . The material is the base plus four sides:

    Domain: , an open interval — no endpoints to test, so the Closed Interval Method is unavailable.

    Solve.

    zero exactly when , that is : the only critical number. For , so ; for , . The derivative is negative everywhere left of the single critical number and positive everywhere right of it, so by the First Derivative Test for Absolute Extrema, is the absolute minimum on .

    Answer. and : a box, using square units. Sanity check: base plus four sides of each gives . The height is half the base side — the open-topped counterpart of the closed can whose height equals its diameter.

  8. Show the solution to question 8

    (a) Volume first. Given (negative: the volume is falling); wanted and when .

    The quantities are tied by . Differentiating with respect to , using the chain rule on ,

    Now substitute and : , so cm/s. The radius shrinks at cm/s.

    Then the surface. From , . The area shrinks at .

    Sanity check: dividing the two rate equations gives , and with that is numerically — consistent.

    (b) Eliminate the width before differentiating. Let be the depth and the width of the water surface. Given ; wanted when .

    The water's cross-section is a triangle similar to the trough's end, so and . Its area is , and the volume of water is that area times the length:

    Differentiate: . Substitute and :

    (c) Keep the differentiated equation and now treat as the unknown: , so m.

    Sanity check: is inversely proportional to the depth, so the level rises faster when the water is shallower and the surface narrower; a rate of exceeds , and is indeed shallower.

  9. Show the solution to question 9

    (a) Antidifferentiate twice, fixing each constant with its initial condition. is an antiderivative of : , and gives , so

    is an antiderivative of : , and gives , so .

    Check: and .

    (b) At rest when : s and s. Sign of : positive on , negative on , positive on . So the particle moves in the positive direction on and for , and in the negative direction on .

    (c) is negative for and positive for . The particle speeds up exactly when and share a sign: on both are negative, and on both are positive. It slows down on and on , where the signs differ.

    Greatest speed while moving backward: on the speed is , a continuous function on that is at both endpoints. Its derivative is , zero only at , so by the Closed Interval Method the maximum is at :

    This is exactly the instant the acceleration changes sign — the particle stops speeding up and starts slowing down.

    (d) Split at the turning times. , , , .

    The three legs have lengths , and , so the total distance is m. The displacement is m: the particle ends m behind where it started, having travelled m to get there.

  10. Show the solution to question 10

    (a) Proof. Define for in . Then

    Because is twice differentiable on , both and are differentiable on , hence continuous there, so the Mean Value Theorem may be applied to either on any closed subinterval of .

    Fix in . If both sides are . Suppose . The Mean Value Theorem for on gives a in with

    The Mean Value Theorem for on gives a in with , i.e. . Combining,

    Since is in , ; and . Hence .

    If , the same two applications on and give with in and in ; now both and are negative with , and the same bound follows. In every case .

    (The constant can be sharpened to by a finer argument; the point here is the order , which is what makes linear approximation work.)

    (b) The estimate. , and gives . So

    The bound. Take . , so , which decreases as grows; its largest value on is at :

    By (a), with ,

    So the fraction is correct to at least four decimal places.

    (c) Too large. The proof of (a) gave the signed identity . Here , , and because . So : the true value lies below the tangent line, and the estimate is too large. This is exactly the picture of concavity: on , so is concave downward there and its graph lies below every tangent.

    Sanity check: , so , about below and well inside the bound.

  11. Show the solution to question 11

    (a) , so Newton's step is

    (b) A two-cycle. From : , and then . The iterates are forever: the method neither converges nor diverges, it oscillates, and never comes near any of the three roots.

    Geometrically: and , so the tangent at is , which meets the -axis where , i.e. at . Because is odd, and : the tangent at is parallel to the first one and lands at . The two tangent lines simply hand the point back and forth across the origin.

    fails to exist when , i.e. , so . These are the local extrema of , where the tangent is horizontal and never meets the axis — Newton's formula divides by zero.

    (c) Cubic, not quadratic. With :

    So one step takes the error from to .

    The estimate's constant at : , so , while . The constant is — the proposition applies (its hypothesis holds) and predicts that the term vanishes. The actual behaviour is one order better: for small the iteration reads

    and indeed , very close to . The root is also an inflection point of , so the tangent line matches the curve to third order there and the errors cube at each step instead of squaring. Quadratic convergence is the worst case the proposition promises, not the best.

  12. Show the solution to question 12

    (a) Proof. For , is a quotient of differentiable functions with nonzero denominator, so by the quotient rule

    Since exists at every , a critical number of is a solution of , i.e. of . Dividing by ,

    (b) Proof. Let , so that and has the sign of . Since exists, is differentiable and so is , with

    By the Increasing/Decreasing Test on the interval , is increasing there.

    Uniqueness. By (a), . If had a second zero , say , then increasing would force , i.e. — impossible (and symmetrically if ). So is the only zero of , hence the only critical number of .

    Absolute minimum. Because is increasing with , we have for and for . Therefore for all in and for all . The function is continuous on , so the First Derivative Test for Absolute Extrema applies and is the absolute minimum of average cost.

    The economic reading: while the next unit costs less than the running average (), producing it pulls the average down; once it costs more, the average rises. The bottom is where the two agree.

    (c) Proof. Put for all real . By the product and chain rules,

    for every , using the hypothesis . The domain of is the whole real line, which is an interval, so the corollary “zero derivative means constant” applies: for all , and . Hence , i.e.

    The interval hypothesis is not decoration: had the population been observed only on two disjoint intervals of time, the constant could differ on the two pieces, and the two stretches of exponential growth would not need to line up.

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