How do you find the x coordinates of the turning points of the function?

1 Answer
Jun 9, 2018

I AM ASSUMING THAT YOUR FUNCTION IS CONTINUOUS AND DIFFERENTIABLE AT THE xx COORDINATE OF THE TURNING POINT

You can find the derivative of the function of the graph, and equate it to 0 (make it equal 0) to find the value of xx for which the turning point occurs.

Explanation:

When you find the derivative of a function, what you're finding is almost like a "gradient function", which gives the gradient for any value of xx that you want to substitute in.

Since the value of the derivative is the same as the gradient at a given point on a function, then with some common sense it's easy to realise that the turning point of a function occurs where the gradient (and hence the derivative) = 0.

So just find the first derivative, set that baby equal to 0 and solve it :-)