Hello,
Please, see the attached files.
Thanks.
The correct answer is C.
You can tell this by factoring the equation to get the zeros. To start, pull out the greatest common factor.
f(x) = x^4 + x^3 - 2x^2
Since each term has at least x^2, we can factor it out.
f(x) = x^2(x^2 + x - 2)
Now we can factor the inside by looking for factors of the constant, which is 2, that add up to the coefficient of x. 2 and -1 both add up to 1 and multiply to -2. So, we place these two numbers in parenthesis with an x.
f(x) = x^2(x + 2)(x - 1)
Now we can also separate the x^2 into 2 x's.
f(x) = (x)(x)(x + 2)(x - 1)
To find the zeros, we need to set them all equal to 0
x = 0
x = 0
x + 2 = 0
x = -2
x - 1 = 0
x = 1
Since there are two 0's, we know the graph just touches there. Since there are 1 of the other two numbers, we know that it crosses there.
