Customer Reviews

Basic College Mathematics

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

 

 

A great book that shows the solutions step by step. Problems become simple as you begin to understand the steps and the order that they are applied.

Contrary to some mean-spirited reviews, my daughter is a college student (English major) and has used Dr. Bello's textbooks for all of her required math classes. She was admittedly terrible at math and only passed her math classes after being introduced to the straight-forward nature of Dr. Bello's lessons. Of course not everyone needs every lesson, but the real-world approach of the math problems allows anyone to learn any math concept that was not fully understood previously. She is certainly not a math expert, but thanks to Dr. Bello, she can handle any common math problem in the real world.

First of all, if you buy this book you probably should have the title truncated to just MATH, because if your reading level is on par with your math level, you can't read four-syllable words (and you probably cannot read complex sentences with parenthetical addenda). This is 2nd grade math and you should not be in college if you start from the beginning of this book.

Secondly, the author should never show his face in the "academic" community, which should laugh him out of a job for pretending 2nd through 7th grade math belongs in college. Anyone who needs this book never learned anything in K-12. This is absolutely pathetic.

Thirdly, if your intelligence is not insulted by the illustrations, you need to go back to second grade. C'mon, 4 groups of 3 pennies each illustrated to figure how many 3-cent stamps you can buy for 12 cents (p .62)? I did not find "how to count with your fingers" in this book, but I did find how to "add numbers on a calculator" using 6 + 8 (p. 30) and "Subtraction with a calculator is easy" using 35 - 15 as an example (p. 44).

It would be a generous euphemism if it were titled High School Remedial Math, but please don't pass this off as a college textbook, and for Pete's sake, don't use my tax dollars to send people to college who have not learned anything in K-12. This book is a shame and an embarrassment to any K-12 teacher whose students use it in college.