Consider the parametric equations below: x = t², y = t⁷. Sketch the curve by using the parametric equations to plot points.

To sketch the curve defined by the parametric equations x = t² and y = t⁷, we first need to calculate several points by substituting various values of t.

Let’s choose values for t in a range to get a sense of how the curve behaves:

  • For t = -2:
    • x = (-2)² = 4
    • y = (-2)⁷ = -128
  • For t = -1:
    • x = (-1)² = 1
    • y = (-1)⁷ = -1
  • For t = 0:
    • x = 0² = 0
    • y = 0⁷ = 0
  • For t = 1:
    • x = 1² = 1
    • y = 1⁷ = 1
  • For t = 2:
    • x = 2² = 4
    • y = 2⁷ = 128

Now we have the following points to plot:

  • (4, -128)
  • (1, -1)
  • (0, 0)
  • (1, 1)
  • (4, 128)

To visualize the curve:

  1. Start plotting points on a Cartesian plane based on the calculated coordinates.
  2. Notice that as t increases or decreases, the curve appears to be steeper and changes direction sharply due to the higher power of y = t⁷ compared to x = t².
  3. Connecting the plotted points will show the overall shape of the curve. It will rise steeply in the positive and negative directions of y as x remains relatively small.

This gives a general shape of the curve, which is symmetric concerning the y axis due to the even power of x and the odd power of y.

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