GCSE/IGCSE-FM Functions

Dr J Frost (jamie@drfrostmaths.com)
@DrFrostMaths
www.drfrostmaths.com

Last modified: 2nd October 2019

www.drfrostmaths.com Register now to interactively practise questions on this topic, including
past paper questions and extension questions (including UKMT).
Everything is completely free. Teachers: you can create student accounts (or students can register
Why not register? themselves), to set work, monitor progress and even create worksheets.

With questions by:

Dashboard with points,

trophies, notifications
and student progress.

Questions organised by topic,

Teaching videos with topic difficulty and past paper.
tests to check understanding.
OVERVIEW

#1: Understanding of functions #2: Inverse Functions

GCSE IGCSEFM GCSE

#3: Composite Functions

GCSE
OVERVIEW

#4: Piecewise functions #5: Domain/Range of common functions

(particularly quadratic and trigonometric)
IGCSEFM
IGCSEFM

#6: Domain/Range of other #7: Constructing a function based

functions IGCSEFM on a given domain/range. IGCSEFM
What are Functions?
A function is something which provides a rule on how to map inputs to
outputs.
From primary school you might have seen this as a ‘number machine’.

Input Output

Input Output

?
Check Your Understanding

Q1 What does this function do?

It squares the input?then adds 2 to it.

Q2
?
Q3
?
Q4

?
Algebraic Inputs

?
?
?
? ?
?
?

?
?
?
Test Your Understanding
A

?
?
?

?
 Exercise 1 (exercises on provided sheet)

1 4
?
? ?
?
2 5
?
?
? ?
? 6

?
?
 Exercise 1 (exercises on provided sheet)

9
7

? ?
☠

8
?
?
?
?
?
?
Inverse Functions
A function takes and input and produces an output.
The inverse of a function does the opposite: it describes how we get from the
output back to the input.

Input Output

?
Quickfire Questions
In your head, find the inverse functions, by thinking what the original
functions does, and what the reverse process would therefore be.

?
Full Method

?
This is purely for convenience.

?
Harder One

?
Test Your Understanding

? ?
Exercise 2 (exercises on provided sheet)

1 3

a ? a ?
b ? b ?
c ?
d ? c ?
e ?
d ?
f
?
2 e ?

?
?
Composite Functions

Have a guess! (Click your answer)

49? 13?
Examples

Bro Tip: I highly encourage you to write this first. It will

help you when you come to the algebraic ones.

?
?
?

?
More Algebraic Examples

?
?

?
Test Your Understanding
1 2

?
?
 Exercise 3 (exercises on provided sheet)

1 6
? ?
? ?
?
2
?
? ?
? 7
3 ?
☠
?
4

?
5
?
?
 This be ye end of GCSE
functions content.
Beyond this point there
be IGCSE Further Maths.
Yarr.
#4 :: Piecewise Functions

Sketch >
Sketch >
Sketch >

(2, 9)

(0, 5)

(-1, 0) (5, 0)
Test Your Understanding
Sketch
Sketch
Sketch
This example
was used on the
specification
itself!

(1, 1) (2, 1)

(3, 0)
 Exercise 4 (Exercises on provided sheet)

1 2

b?
c?

?
a?
 Exercise 4 (Exercises on provided sheet)

3 4

? Sketch ?

?
Exercise 4 (Exercises on provided sheet)

5 6

1 2 3 4 5 3 7
-1 -1
?
-2

-3

-4 ?
 Domain and Range
Inputs

-1 1 Outputs

0 0

1.7 2.89
2 4

3.1 9.61
... ...

🖉 The domain of a function is the set of 🖉 The range of a function is the set of
possible inputs. possible outputs.
Example

Sketch:
Bro Note: By ‘suitable’, I mean the largest possible set of values that could be input into the function.

Suitable ?
Domain:

Range: ?
Test Your Understanding

Sketch: ?

Suitable ?
Domain: Presuming the output has to be a real number, we
can’t input negative numbers into our function.

Range: ?
The output, again, can only be positive.
 Mini-Exercise
In pairs, work out a suitable domain and the range of each function.
A sketch may help with each one.
3
1 2 Functio
Functio Functio
n n
n
Domain ? Domain ? Domain
?
Range Range
Range
4 5 6
Functio Functio Functio
n n n
Domain ? Domain ? Domain ?
Range Range Range
7
8
Functio Functio
n n
Domain Domain ?
Range ? Range
Range of Quadratics
A common exam question is to determine the range of a quadratic.

?
Test Your Understanding

?
Range for Restricted Domains
Some questions are a bit jammy by restricting the domain. Look out for this, because
it affects the domain!

?
Test Your Understanding

? ?
Range of Trigonometric Functions

Suppose we restricted the domain in different ways.

Determine the range in each case (or vice versa). Ignore angles below 0 or above 360.

Domain Range
?
?
?
Range of Piecewise Functions
It’s a simple case of just sketching the full function.

Graph ? Range ?
Test Your Understanding

Graph ? Range ?
Exercise 5 (exercises on provided sheet)

1 4

?
? ?
?
2
?
?
?
5

?
?
3
?
?
Exercise 5 (exercises on provided sheet)

6 8

?
7

?
?

?
Exercise 5 (exercises on provided sheet)

9 10

?
?
?
?
?
Exercise 5 (exercises on provided sheet)

11 13

?
12

?
Constructing a function from a domain/range
June 2013 Paper 2

?
Constructing a function from a domain/range
Sometimes there’s the additional constraint that the function is ‘increasing’ or
‘decreasing’. We’ll cover this in more depth when we do calculus, but the meaning of
these words should be obvious.

?
Exercise 6 (exercises on provided sheet)

?
2

?
3
?
4

?
5