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Increasing and Decreasing of Functions Review

One of the main things you'll be hunting in Calculus is where graphs are increasing and decreasing...  So, we'd better review it!

Check out this graph:

a graph

You've got an ant climbing on the graph.  Not just any ant...  Pierre the Mountain Climbing Ant!

Pierre the Mountain Climbing Ant!!

(He's kind of a pathetic math super hero.)  For this, the rule is that Pierre only crawls from left to right (like we read):

Pierre always walks from left to right
 

If Pierre is climbing uphill, then the graph is increasing:

on the intervals ( -infinity , -3 ) U ( 1 , 4 ) Pierre is climbing uphill ... therefore the graph is increasing

So, our graph is increasing on
 

( -infinity , -3 ) U ( 1 , 4 )

(We use interval notation with X VALUES!)