Customer Reviews

Calculus for Business, Economics, and the Social and Life Sciences, Brief Edition

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

 

 

The title says Brief Edition, but the book still weighs in at over 750 pages. Not so brief. Calculus is calculus. However, the book is replete with examples drawn from business, economics and the social sciences. Meant to motivate readers majoring in those fields, and who have found that they need to learn calculus.

The examples are good for that reason. Motivation and relevance are key to learning calculus. Especially if many readers might not have garnered any especial aptitude for maths during their earlier schooling. Lest some of you get offended, let me point out that students who are strong in maths during primary and high school often tilt towards majoring in maths, the physical sciences or engineering in university. For them, motivation in learning maths was rarely a problem. But for others, a book like this can be useful.

This is easily one of the worst textbooks I've ever read, which makes my current class of calculus infinitely more difficult as a result. I've never taken calculus before, but I've enjoyed other math classes due to the easy, accessible texts and a good teacher to complement them. The book is simply not user-friendly to anyone outside of those who have taken calculus in some form beforehand, or even those who have.

The chapter examples are predominantly where most of the action goes down, and the authors often use simple examples (never mind giving explanations on how they solved the problem, often my classmates and I had to take too much time to diagnose what the author did from one step to the next due to a lack of a step-by-step process), and not only that, but they save the easy stuff for themselves to explain away and save the headachers that need explaining for the reader! Even my professor from time to time had to take too much classtime to try and reason out the author's muddled intentions rather than teaching the planned lesson.

In short, this was an easy paycheck to some of the laziest group of Ph.Ds I'll ever see.

Having returned to school for another degree, I was forced to take yet another calculus class or write a paper about calculus so, I figured a little review never hurt and I'd get a good grade.

I have decided that out of all of the calculus, differential equations, etc., that I took in college getting that engineering degree, I like this book the best. Good examples of practical applications for economics and social sciences without a lot of "prove thats..."

My only beef would be for first time calculus students who are weak in algebra as some of the problems lack examples within the text.

The pages in the book are still in pretty condition...no stains or anything obscuring the narrative. The cover was more tattered than than the product description had led me to believe. I'm still satisfied.

I am very pleased with the company that I bought this book from. They had the description of the book and when I received the book it was in the exact condition that they had stated. Also, they gave me a estimated arrival date and it actually came 3 days early so that was great. I will definately buy books from this company again. This was my first experience buying a book from Amazon and I am very pleased with everything.

This book was sent in great condition and I received it in an acceptable amount of time. Thanks for the great service!

Book in VERY good condition, nothing written on the inside and no damages on the outside...EXTREMELY happy.