Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-year-1-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2013/paper-2/18/d/solution

For , differentiate the two explicit branches:
The plus branch is strictly increasing and strictly convex for . Its only zero is , also its one-sided global minimum; it has no interior extremum or inflection point.
The minus branch rises initially, then has at , changing from positive to negative. Its second derivative changes sign at . Its zeros follow from . Consequently
The origin is a one-sided local minimum of both graph branches, because their domain ends there; it is not an interior critical point. The minus branch has no global minimum since it tends to as . Its maximum and inflection heights, useful for the sketch, are and , respectively.

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