Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-year-1-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2009/paper-2/5/solution

Factorization gives , so the zeros are and , with a double root at two. The derivatives are and . Thus
The second derivative changes sign at one, confirming the inflection point. The curve rises from , crosses at , reaches its local maximum, falls to touch the axis at two, then rises to . Neither local extremum is a global extremum on the whole real line.
Figure 1.
Zeros, two stationary points and an inflection point of the cubic
. Details.

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