Customer Reviews

Algebra with Trigonometry for College Students (Book & CD-ROM)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

A very common agreement in my math class between students is how awful this book is. The book chooses to lead every section by 5-10 examples with a few sentences explaining what is going on. What the book fails to do for any topic is go into detail the logic and reasoning behind what we're doing. The book uses the idea that all we need to do is see HOW something is done to learn how it'll be done in a way the book doesn't show us. There are a ton of questions for the reviews and tests that were not even close to any of the examples in the books but yet we are supposed to know how to do things in a different way without ever being explained WHY things are how they are.

There are videos that come with the book but don't bother putting them on your computer. It's NOT video, it's one frame every 5-8 seconds while the audio streams so you INSTANTLY become confused when he's writing something on the board and it freezes.. but yet you hear him explaining further steps without ever seeing it on screen. It's not my computer, it's how they set up the cd.

No one in my class likes this book, I've done all my learning from web sites since chapter 2 because the book is absolutely not written by a math instructor.

It was bad enough that the accompaning CD was filmed in the stone age, with a tiny amount of information, none that differed from the book, nor with any new information as the guy skips/leaps over the steps. But what was a huge time waster, angered me and left me out to hang was the so-called online resource with "tutors" available during certain times of the day. Well, that site is a mess. Totally unworkable and a lie.I spent hours tying to login in and signup and search (finding only dead end sites). By the time I gave up I was profoundly frustrated and I felt cheated. If that's why the book cost an arm and a leg then we have been deceived.

And thinking about it now, the book's examples are pretty helpful for the easy problems in the chapters but a problem with more complicated situations and the book leaves you again out of help.

What a disgrace.

This book is one of my favorites math book; simple, concise, yet challenging. But I also had a very good professor. I also agree with some review that some examples skip steps, but most are self explanatory(if you know the material). So far the best math book that I've ever read is "Precalculus" by James Stewart. Followed by "Calculus" by Stewart 5e.

This book was the text for a class I took. Everyone, including the teacher, found it almost impossible to learn from the book. We used it for exercises and examples, but that was about it.

An excellent book such as this one deserves praise. I read it, I got it, and I can teach it.