Math 118 Extra Unit B practice 2

The problems that follow are examples of questions I’ve asked on assessments in past semesters. They are
meant to give you a sense of the style of problems on assessments, but not necessarily the content of the
problems. For example, just because a particular concept doesn’t appear in these practice problems doesn’t
mean that you aren’t responsible for knowing it for our assessments. You’re responsible for knowing anything
in the notes, the prelims, and the practice problems. Below you’ll find the formulas that will be provided
for you for Unit B material.

Formulas

• Elasticity: • Lagrange multipliers:

p ′
E(p) = q (p) ◦ fx (x, y) = λgx (x, y)
q(p)
◦ fy (x, y) = λgy (x, y)
• Linear approximation:
◦ g(x, y) = c
L(x, y) = f (a, b)+fx (a, b)(x−a)+fy (a, b)(y−b)

• Second derivative test:

D(a, b) = fxx (a, b)fyy (a, b) − fxy (a, b)2

◦ If D(a, b) < 0, then (a, b) is a saddle point.
◦ If D(a, b) > 0 and fxx (a, b) > 0, then (a, b)
is a local minimum.
◦ If D(a, b) > 0 and fxx (a, b) < 0, then (a, b)
is a local maximum.
◦ If D(a, b) = 0 then the test is inconclusive.
B1 - Extrema of functions

Consider the function

f (x) = x4 − 4x3 + 1

(a) Find all critical points of f (x).

(b) Classify each critical point from part (a) as a local maximum, a local minimum, or neither.

(c) Find all inflection points of f (x). Be sure to fully justify that the points you report are inflection
points.

(d) Find the absolute maximum and absolute minimum of f (x) on the interval [1, 4].
B2 - Further applications of the derivative

(a) Consider the graph of a company’s cost function,

C(q), shown to the right.

(i) Is the company’s average cost per good in-

creasing or decreasing at q = 3? Justify your
answer by sketching on the graph a represen-
tation of the company’s average cost per good
at q = 3.

(ii) At what (approximate) quantity is the company’s average cost per good a minimum? Justify your
answer by sketching on the graph a representation of the company’s average cost per good at this
quantity.

(b) Suppose Apple has identified that at a price of $1250 per phone, they will sell 150 million iPhone 13’s.
Furthermore, they suspect that for each $100 decrease in price, they will sell 20 million more phones.
Similarly, for every $100 increase in price, they will sell 20 million fewer phones. Find the price at
which revenue is maximized.
B3 - Multivariable functions

(a) The table to the right shows the demand for

Price of Good B
Good A, qA , as a function of the price for Good
A, pA , and the price for Good B, pB .
$0 $5 $10 $15 $20
(i) If g(pA ) is the cross-section of qA (pA , pB )
with pB fixed at $15, does g(pA ) increase $0 174 129 85 42 0
or decrease as pA increases? Indicate very

Price of Good A
clearly from the table how you know. $5 162 120 79 39 0

$10 120 96 63 31 0

$15 78 57 37 18 0

$20 6 3 1 0 0

(ii) Suppose that h(pB ) is the cross-section of qA (pA , pB ) with pA fixed at $15. What is the average
rate of change of h(pB ) on the interval [0, 15]?

(b) Suppose C(I, p) gives the consumption of beef

C (measured in pounds per week per house-
hold) as a function of household income, I (in
tens of thousands of dollars per year), and price
of beef, p (in dollars per pound). A contour di-
agram for C(I, p) is shown to the right.

(i) If initially I = 4 and p = 1, and then p in-

creases to 9, how should I change so that
C remains unchanged? Mark X’s on the
diagram indicating the points you used to
answer this question.

∆I =

(ii) Suppose that initially I = 2 and C = 3. If I remains constant and C decreases to 2, what is the
corresponding change in p? Mark O’s on the diagram indicating the points you used to answer
this question.

∆p =
B4 - Partial derivatives

(a) Suppose we know the following information about a function f (x, y):
• f (6, 7) = 4
• fx (6, 7) = 9
• fy (6, 7) = −8

(i) Find the linear approximation of f (x, y) at (a, b) = (6, 7).

(ii) Use the linear approximation from part (i) to estimate f (5, 5).

1 2
(b) Consider the production function Q(L, K) = 15L 3 K 3 , where Q is output (measured in tons), L is
labor (measured in hundreds of workers), and K is the value of capital (measured in millions of dollars).
(i) Find QK (1, 8).

(ii) Which of the following are correct interpretations of QK (1, 8)? Circle all that apply.
A. QK (1, 8) is the approximate difference in output between a company that employs 1 units
of labor and 9 units of capital and a company that employs 1 unit of labor and 8 units of
capital.
B. QK (1, 8) is the approximate difference in output between a company that employs 2 units
of labor and 8 units of capital and a company that employs 1 unit of labor and 8 units of
capital.
C. QK (1, 8) is the rate of change of Q with respect to K at K = 8 assuming L is held constant
at 1.
D. QK (1, 8) is the rate of change of K with respect to Q at K = 8 assuming L is held constant
at 1.
E. QK (1, 8) is the derivative of the single-variable function Q(L, 8) at L = 1.
B5 - Extrema of multivariable functions

(a) Find and classify the critical points of the function f (x, y) = −4x3 − y 2 + 3x2 − 10y − 6.

(b) If a company sells q1 units of Good 1 and q2 units of Good 2, its profit is

π(q1 , q2 ) = 32q1 − 2q12 + q1 q2 + 7q2 − 2q22

If the company must produce 9 units of goods in total, it will achieve a maximum profit of 146 when
q1 = 7 and q2 = 2 (you don’t need to check this).
(i) Write down the three Lagrange multiplier equations for this constrained optimization problem
(but don’t solve them), and then use the given information to find the value of λ.

(ii) If the company is able to increase its production to 12 units, estimate its new maximum profit.