Monday 1/7/2008
Period 2. We continued to work on Worksheet “W”. We worked on using the graphing calculators to find maxima, minima, and zeros of polynomial functions. We also took notes on properties of polynomial functions including:
1. If the first term (term with the greatest exponent) is positive then as x approaches positive infinity then y will approach positive infinity.
2. If the first term is negative then as x approaches positive infinity then y will approach negative infinity.
3. If the order is even then the two end behaviors will be the same.
4. If the order is negative then the two end behaviors will be opposite.
5. The greatest possible number of maxima and minima will be one less then the order of the polynomial function.
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