Customer Reviews

The Calculus Tutoring Book

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book is the all-time, no-question-about-it mother of all calculus texts. Period.

If you have despaired of learning not just the tricks, but also the trade, of calculus, this book will amaze you; you know alot more than you thought, and are alot better at both differential and integral calculus than you may even have hoped. I learned calculus to MY OWN satisfaction using this book. It is immaculately clear in presentation, and not only holds interest but also reader confidence, (very much in an a la Feynman sort of way). I have neither seen nor can even imagine a better primer. Points:

1. The book omits all the rubbish about "proofs"; it obviously works, why bother? Only (sadistic?) mathematicians value such hieroglyphics. Strugglers DO NOT want to even SEE it;

2. Numerous well-worked examples abound throughout, and all exercises have answers in the back of the book. There are few things in this world more irritating than a (sadistic?) mathematician who puts problems without solutions in a calculus primer;

3. This book demystifies the terminolgy and techniques of what, at least in the rudimentary stages, is really not so difficult a topic. The presentation starts at ground zero, (slopes and limits in plain talk), and concludes with a very clear chapter on multiple integrals.

You will acquire a lot of familiarity with calculus, and lose a lot of pent-up dread. You will also be able to derive, from first principles at a moment's notice, the formula for the volume of a sphere - much to the amazement of friends and family.

In a former lifetime as a scientist, I couldn't help noticing how leery many of my peers would become when even the word "calculus" was mentioned. To these, calculus was a dreaded schoolmaster, ready to slap their palms with a pandybat. To me, it was an old and much appreciated friend - a lot more clever and eccentric than (even) me, but generally understandable, if you take the time to bear with him.

If you need or want to understand basic calculus, the buck stops here. "Do yourself a favor."

As a professor of Physics and Engineering, I frequently get questions and complaints from students taking a traditional Calculus class using a traditional Calculus text about one point or another that escapes their understanding. Since Ash & Ash came out with The Calculus Tutoring Book, I simply have them look up the same topic in their text. Universally, they have been so impressed that they ask where they can buy a copy for themselves! Such a student response is the best endorsement any textbook can achieve. I regularly recommend the book to my Physics and Engineering students as a necessary addition to their personal library. I highly recommend the book to any serious student of the Calculus, particularly if Science or Engineering is their main interest.

Learning or reviewing math is difficult and requires motivation and a very good book. This is a very good book, possibly one of the few very well written math books. Lots of problems, some to that build confidence and others that will challenge. I used it for review and was glad to find such a good book.

This book is an excellent introduction into calculus. Perhaps I think it is so good because the authors present it in a visual style and I'm a visual thinker. Doubtlessly, it does not (cannot) cover a great deal of issues in calculus, but it is a wonderful introduction. I wonder why high school teachers don't use this instead of those horribly dry textbooks that they use. It seems to me that kids would sure learn and like calculus more if they used something like this.

Pros:
1. Direct to the point tutorial.
2. Simple and generally easy to follow examples.
3. Good exercises with answers.
4. Self contained. Do not need a graphical calculator.
5. Covers most colleges Calculus 1, 2, 3 courses.
6. Easy language.
7. Good supplementary book.
8. Simple and easy to understand diagrams.

Cons:
1. Few instances of presenting material without adequate explanations.
2. Need detailed Calculus text to fully understand concepts thoroughly.
3. Vector Calculus is not covered.

Overall, if you have some exposure to calculus, this is an excellent primer.

I took two semesters of calculus as an engineering major at a "prestigious" university and got a B and C respectively. The abstract lectures, which were held in a crowded auditorium, were incomprehensible (to me) and I found the textbook to be unreadable- we only used it because the authors were faculty members. Thankfully, I discovered this book in the local library and worked my way though it over summer vacation. In the process, I learned everything I was supposed to have learned in class. When I eventually took an advanced calculus course, I easily got an A because I'd learned so much from this book.

This book is outstanding because it's intuitive with excellent "hand-drawn"-like figures. It avoids formal, mathematical rigour and has good problems with full solutions. However, it's NOT appropriate for non-science/engineering majors because it covers more advanced material than many of the other excellent "calculus for dummies"-like books, which have appeared since 1986.

Unfortunately, due to a kind of academic "hazing" (elitism and snobbery), most professor prefer to assign difficult textbooks that actually make the material much HARDER to learn than it has to be. As college tuition is over $30K per year now, perhaps it's time to outsource higher education...

This book does what it intends to do. It gives the reader a gentle, but extremely engaging and informative, introduction to calculus. It goes from simple 1 dimensional caclulus to the calculus of three dimensions. Its scope is not as large as other calculus books, but where it lacks in scope, it easily makes up for in qaulity. It is a very intuitive approach, and some of the proofs for important theorems are a little short and informal, but this does not really detract from the book. All it means is that this book shares the illness of all books, it can't cover everything in one go. You will need to get other books to go deeper into calculus, but this one is one hell of a start.

...book...however, Carol Ash was my professor for a course in differential equations and orthogonal functions at the University of Illinois and I think she was the best teacher I have ever had in ANY subject...if this book reflects her ability to make difficult concepts comprehensible then I have no doubt it is outstanding.

...a couple of months later and I'm adding a comment I found in a review by "roninsf" of Stewart's calculus text:

"Another excellent book to supplement any calculus text is "The Calculus Tutoring Book" by Carol and Robert Ash. This book covers most of the material covered in a standard text like Stewart's or Larson's, but in a much friendlier style. It strips away a lot of the formalism found in a standard text so that what you are left with is a practical guide to doing calculus problems. It is not packaged with a bunch of computer generated graphs and figures. Instead everything is hand sketched. At first this may seem like a drawback, but once you get used to it, you realize how much you can do with your own pencil and paper. In my opinion, this is one of the best supplemental calculus texts you can buy. It would even serve as an excellent review book in its own right."

There are a number of excellent calculus books both new and old (Please see my reviews for specific titles) that are superior to this text.
Also, as far as I can tell in my own personal copy, the mean value theorem is not covered. This is one of the cornerstone results
of first year calculus and I cannot give any calculus book a high rating that leaves this out. ( Imagine an introductory physics book that does not
discuss Newton's Second Law)

For an inexpensive and very well written book on basic calculus check out Calculus by Kline. For a standard textbook, the book
by Strang is excellent and cannot be beat. For a great outline/study guide check out "The Calculus Lifesaver" by Banner.

In summary, although this book is not bad by any stretch, I question the need for a student or autodidact to spend
his/her hard earned money when much better texts are available.

Good Luck !

'MS. ASH' MUST BE OUT OF HER MIND IN REGARD TO THE EFFECTIVENESS OF HER 'TEACHING' CAPABILITY AND THE 'COST' OF THIS BOOK. I DO EMPHASIZE 'COST'! BELIEVE ME WHEN I TELL YOU THAT YOU COULD PURCHASE ANOTHER BOOK AMONGST MANY, THAT IS JUST AS EFFECTIVE AND AUTHORITIVE AS THIS ONE, AND WOULDN'T COST YOU HALF AS MUCH. ACTUALLY IT'S A BIT DISGRACEFUL THAT THIS WOMAN EXPECTS SO MUCH FROM THIS 'PAPERBACK WITH APPROXIMATELY 200 PAGES. I GUESS GOD CAME BACK IN THE FORM OF 'MS. ASH'.