Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2008/iii/paper-42/2/ii/solution

The Gumbel distribution for maxima has distribution function on the whole real line. For set
Both the centering and scale are elementary, and the scale is positive. For any fixed real , the normalized threshold is positive for all sufficiently large . Writing , a Taylor expansion gives
Consequently,
The logarithm calculation in part (i) now gives
Thus belongs to the maximum domain of attraction of the standard Gumbel distribution. The scale also has the Gumbel auxiliary function interpretation: the reciprocal hazard function is , whose derivative tends to zero at the infinite right endpoint. This agrees with the Von Mises conditions for extreme values, and at gives exactly .

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