How do I find out if a critical point of a function is a maximum or a minimum?

111 Views Asked by At

If I've found the critical point of a function defined in some constraint (perhaps using Lagrange multipliers and the like); how do I find out if it's a relative/global maximum/minimum of a function without plugging it into an equation and/or using the second-derivative test (considering an example of a one-degree polynomial)?

I'd like an example too if that's not too much.