Let f ∈ R(t) [x] be given by f (t, x) = x n + t · g(x) and β 1 < · · · < βm the distinct real roots of the discriminant ∆ (f,x) (t) of f (t, x) with respect to x. Let γ be the number of real roots of g(x) = s k=0 t s−k x s−k . For any ξ > |βm|, if n − s is odd then the number of real roots of f (ξ, x) is γ + 1, and if n − s is even then the number of real roots of f (ξ, x) is γ, γ + 2 if ts > 0 or ts < 0 respectively. A special case of the above result is constructing a family of totally complex polynomials which are reducible over Q.