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by posterboy 3263 days ago
I was saying you presented a weak argument. Graphing the differentialquotient multiple times is more trouble than it's worth.
1 comments

The point of the problem I gave was not to find the derivative or even to know if a function is differentiable. The point is to test their understanding of the definition of derivative. It's a good problem in that is tests whether a student understands that in the two variable expression we call the difference quotient one of the variables is fixed for purposes of the definition. The students need to know that it is h that varies and not x. This is an unusual occurrence and requires some getting used to.