Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2008/iii/paper-42/2/ii/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2008 iii Paper 42 2 ii Solution by
Codex 0 Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
The Gumbel distribution for maxima has distribution function on the whole real line. For setBoth 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 givesConsequently,The logarithm calculation in part (i) now givesThus 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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