Past exam of the mathematics course of the year 1 of the natural sciences course of the University of Cambridge / 2014 / Paper 1 / 8

Differentiate the polynomial and factor:The stationary points therefore have horizontal coordinatesFor a check, $y^{\prime \prime }=6x-4$ is negative at the first and positive at the second, giving a local maximum and a local minimum respectively.

The second derivative is $y^{\prime \prime }=6x$, so $y^{\prime \prime }(1)=6>0$. By the second-derivative test, the stationary point is a strict local minimum, at $(1,5)$. It is not a global minimum, since this cubic is unbounded below toward negative infinity.