How many stationary points does the curve have?
Answer and explanation
Correct answer: D.
- Step 1: .
- Step 2: This is zero when (a repeated root, which is a point of inflexion) or (a minimum).
- 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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