Worked solution
Identify the parabola touched by every line in a family
The line is tangent to the parabola for every . Find and the coordinates of contact in terms of . marks
[2014/VJC/I/1]
CJC · Review problems · Question 7
Answer
; contact point for .
Method 1: equate the differential gradient to m
Differentiation gives , so at contact and . For the nondegenerate parabola , its equation gives . Substitute into the tangent: , hence . The contact point is .
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Method 2: require a repeated intersection root
Substitution yields , or . Tangency requires , giving or . Reject : is a degenerate line, not the stated parabola. With , the quadratic is , so and , as before.
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Common mistakes
The discriminant also gives k=0, which is excluded by the nondegenerate-parabola condition.