Question

What are the important points needed to graph `y = x^2 + 4x - 1`?

Answer 1

What are the x intercepts? What are the y intercepts (if any)? What is y's minimum/maximum value(s)?
With these points we can create a rudimentary graph, which will be close to the actual graph below.

graph{x^2+4x-1 [-10, 10, -5, 5]}

Explanation:

The x intercepts appear to be `x = -2-sqrt5` and `sqrt5-2`. Our minimum y value is -5, at (-2, -5). Our y intercept is at (0,-1).