24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
solid text, no overall change from previous edition, August 15, 2006
This review is from: Chemistry: The Central Science, 10th Edition (Hardcover)
I wrote the review below for the previous edition (9), and having seen the tenth edition, most of my subjects of complaints and praises pretty much remain the same.
First off, having maintained contact with my freshman year chem prof, I have to say that she still tells the students that they can easily get away with buying the previous edition. Interestingly enough, back when I was taking the course and the 10th wasn't even released yet, she told us we can get away with using the 8th. I have not seen the 8th though, so no comments on that. So it seems as if there are no major overhauls from the 8th-10th editions as far as my prof's concerned.
I say this is a solid text primarily because of the glut of problems for you to practice on, and the nice flow of information through the chapters. The text is written with clarity in mind, and with clarity it does convey its topics. With well-placed worked sample problems and excellent charts and diagrams, this is a great book to have in hand if you're taking a college-level chemistry course.
However, this book has its limitations in that there are several topics that are covered at the college level that are not really expounded on by the book. For example, the text gives a half-page introduction on semiconductors and how electron excitation works in semiconductors ; we did one full lecture on it. Furthermore, some of the problems that hit you in the form of the professor's custom-made, self-written problem sets occasionally involve problem solving methods that are not even covered in the book. I experienced a fair share of this when I saw application questions that involved a lot more variables than any of the book's questions involved.
This brings me to talk about my last perceived limitation of the textbook: its lack of good application / integrative exercises. I like the book's armada of additional exercises at the end of the chapter, but I think a better textbook should include more application problems - sort of like 'problem-based learning', if that's a better way to put it. A good example would be the types of questions you can expect to see on a final exam - questions that implicitly expect you to apply all sorts of concepts obtained from the whole chapter, and possibly even concepts from previous chapters - to solve a real world problem.
To conclude, the pros of this book include its clarity in explaining concepts, the decent flow from topic to topic, and its solid arsenal of practice problems and worked sample problems. The cons include its lack of application problems (problem-based learning), need for more in-depth discussions of some topics, and need for more problem solving strategies. Overall a great text, but a better text can bring my B up to an A in this class.
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23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Authoritative Gen Chem Book, July 25, 2008
I teach general chemistry as both a private tutor and as a free tutor at Purdue University. In my time, I've seen every general chemistry book known to man come across the table. Without fail, though, BLB is my reference text. Like many gen chem books it has excellent diagrams, but in addition the text is lucid, organized, well written and makes no pedagogical leaps that the reader must figure out on their own. It is easy to read and easy to understand and the material is presented in a fairly logical order (I have minor quibbles with some of it). I forsee this book becoming a classic in the future.
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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best out there, November 26, 2007
My AP chemistry class used this book as well as my college General Chemistry class. Ive compared it with other popular chemistry books and none of them explain as thoroughly and cover as wide a breadth of topics as this book does. If your having problems with your current General Chemistry textbook you should definitely buy this one as an adjunct to it.
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