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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Does not teach understanding, only Rules. Poorly Edited., December 19, 2003
This review is from: Bob Miller's Geometry for the Clueless (Paperback)
This is the worst geometry book I have ever seen. Being an educator, I thought that this book may provide some useful information for students with misconceptions about geometry. However, the author mostly just rants about the difference between "old/traditional" and "new" math methods. He spends more time trying to convince the reader that his "method" is better than others, when in reality, he is teaching the exact same thing in the exact same way that it is taught in a typical high school classroom. The only difference in his "method" is that he provides a number of geometry "rules". For example, he lists a number of "rules" used to determine if a triangle is equilataral, isosceles, or scalene. Instead of rules, one should learn WHY and WHAT makes a triange fall in one of these catagories (i.e. - understanding, not rules). He seems to want to establish a bunch of rules for things that are not necessary if one can understand conceptually why something is true. Also, the book is poorly edited. There are frequent errors (typos) in his proofs which can cause quite a lot of confusion if you do not know how to do proofs or do not know geometry well enough to discover these errors. How can someone learn when the textbook is wrong? Finally, his material presentation is confusing. Figures are not properly labeled and are often hard find. Once, he talks about "angle A in Figure 2", but I could not find the figure, since it was not labeled. After searching for it, I found the figure 4 pages BEFORE. Why present a figure if you are not going to talk about it on that page? In summary... poorly organized, poorly edited, and not concerned with teaching understanding - it is OK if you are looking for a simple geometry "rule book" but not if you are trying to actually understand geometry.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Embarrassing..., July 19, 2004
This review is from: Bob Miller's Geometry for the Clueless (Paperback)
I picked this up at a local book store, flipped through it quickly, and purchased it on a whim, intending to review my basic geometry skills as I work my way up to more advanced college level mathematics While reviewing the first 2 chapters, I immediately noticed a few typos, a perfectly obvious mistake in an equation, and a missing diagram to explain the definition of an angle bisector. (I am not a math whiz-- if I can find these mistakes, there's a problem.) I also noticed that the author had a tendency to rage over the evilness of new math and how poorly written student textbooks are these days (This is funny considering how poorly written/edited this book is). Since I'd already written in the book, I ignored these problems and continued on my quest to understand geometry. I didn't get far. Throughout the first several chapters the author tends to get sidetracked with poorly written paragraphs devoted to showing the student whether or not their school textbook/instructor is worthless or not. Fine, but what does that have to do with helping a student understand basic concepts so that he/she can pass their exams? Often, the author's written explanations are so convoluted, they're impossible to understand without re-writing them yourself. McGraw Hill should be ashamed for printing this. On careful review, say for example, if one was attempting to learn from the book, the book comes off like unedited notes. Also, the layout is appalling. The author is constantly referring to diagrams that either flat out don't exist, or they're found several pages earlier in the text and are not labeled. I can't get my money back, but you can make sure not to waste yours...
If I could rate this item with negative stars I would.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This Book Needs A New Title!, October 15, 2006
A Kid's Review
This review is from: Bob Miller's Geometry for the Clueless (Paperback)
This geometry book is very nice for those wanting to brush up on their definitions! It does have a few typos in the examples which shouldn't cause you a problem if you actually get what he explains! If you are clueless however I do not think you would like this book. It's because it does assume you went through at least pre-algebra(or my pre-algebra book.) You don't have to understand geometric concepts to begin with! And by that I mean alot of them! *perhaps the reason for the title* The only problem with this book is it's title. I am a complete math lover so I was ashamed to show anyone else who loved math the title. I did though and they thought it was a bit funny that I would be reading a book named Bob Miller's Geometry for the Clueless!
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