The original cover identifies the examination as 9 September 2015.[ref]
Discrete mathematics, continuous mathematics, and probability resit examination by the University of Oxford (2015). Cover, formal code A10100W1, Long Vacation 2015
At , , so the second-derivative test gives a strict local minimum. In fact is negative for and positive for except at , so is the global minimum as well.
At , the second-derivative test is inconclusive because . But changes from negative to positive across , while . Hence this is a stationary inflection point. Equivalently, the leading nonconstant term in the Taylor polynomial changes sign across . The paper explicitly uses “saddle point” to mean an inflection point, so in its terminology the classification isHere the “saddle point” is a one-dimensional stationary inflection point, rather than the usual multivariable use of saddle point of a scalar function.[ref]
Discrete mathematics, continuous mathematics, and probability resit examination by the University of Oxford (2015). Page 8, Question 6(b)(iii), explicit definition of “saddle point”