Final question in the book need help

Are you saying you do not even know how to find the roots of the characteristic equation? Aren't you taking a course in differential equations?

(I do not like the first question- "What are the roots?". The roots of what? At that point we only had a differential equation and differential equations don't have roots. They should have asked "what are the roots of the corresponding characteristic equation?". In fact, since they are going "step by step" it would have been good to ask, first, "what is the associated homogeneous equation?" and then "what is the characteristic equation?")
 
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