Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Oxford / 2015 / Prelims / Mathematics I / 2 / c / ii / B / Solution

Every elementary column operation preserves the linear span of the columns: each new column is a linear combination of the old columns, and the inverse operation supplies the reverse inclusion. Thus the column space of $A^{\prime \prime }$ equals that of $A$, which is precisely the image of a linear map $T_{\alpha }$. Consequently (B) is true for every $\alpha \in \mathbb{R}$.