How many stationary points does the curve have?

Answer and explanation

Correct answer: D.

  1. Step 1: .
  2. Step 2: This is zero when (a repeated root, which is a point of inflexion) or (a minimum).
  3. Step 3: So there are stationary points.
Answer
.
Why not the others: ignores the point at where the gradient is also zero; counts twice; equals the degree of the polynomial, not the number of distinct zeros of .

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