A line passing through the point , touches the parabola at the point in the first quadrant. The area of the region bounded by the line , parabola , and the x-axis is:
- A
- B
- C
- D
A line passing through the point , touches the parabola at the point in the first quadrant. The area of the region bounded by the line , parabola , and the x-axis is:
Correct answer:C
Standard Method
Given: A line through touches the parabola at a point in the first quadrant.
Find: The area bounded by the line , the parabola, and the -axis.
Using the tangent form through ,
Substituting into the parabola,
gives
which leads to the quadratic equation
For tangency, the discriminant must be zero:
Solving, we get
Hence the tangent is
or equivalently
The point of tangency is .
Now the required area is the area between and from to :
Therefore, the area of the required region is . The correct option is C.

Parametric Tangent Method
Given: The parabola is and the tangent passes through .
Find: The enclosed area.
Write the parabola as , so and hence . A parametric point on the parabola is
The slope of the tangent there is
Since the tangent passes through and the point , its slope is
Equating slopes,
so
As the point is in the first quadrant, . Thus and the tangent is
that is,
Now compute the area:
Therefore, the required area is .
Using the tangent slope incorrectly for . The standard result is for , so here the horizontal shift by does not change the slope formula, but it does change the point coordinates. Use the shifted form carefully.
Integrating with respect to instead of . Here both curves are naturally written as in terms of , namely and , so the area should be found using horizontal strips.
Taking after obtaining . The question states that the point of tangency lies in the first quadrant, so and therefore must be chosen.
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