Question

The shape of a quartic with a negative leading coefficient most closely resembles what letter

Answer 1

M

Explanation:

A quartic equation/function is a fourth degree polynomial. The general form is:

`ax^4+bx^3+cx^2+dx+e`

We can put any values for the variables a, b, c, d, and e.

The general shape of a fourth degree polynomial is in the shape of the English letter "W".

The leading coefficient is the value of "a".

If a is negative, the curve gets upside down, so a "W" going upside down would resemble an "M".

A graph of a quartic with negative leading coefficient is shown attached. The equation is:

`-x^(4)+2x^(3)+x^(2)-2x-2`