How do you graph y=6cosx?

1 Answer

See below:

Explanation:

We can start with the graph of y=cosx:

graph{cosx [-6.25, 6.25, -8, 8]}

The graph runs -2pi<=x<=2pi. Max y = 1 at x=0, -2pi, 2pi; Min y = -1 at x=-pi, pi. And the x-intersects are at x=pi/2, (3pi)/2, -pi/2, -(3pi)/2.

So how does the graph change? The equation y=6cosx will increase the y result for any x by 6 - so in essence we're just moving the Max y and Min y marks from 1 and -1 to 6 and -6. That looks like this:

graph{6cosx [-6.25, 6.25, -8, 8]}