Customer Reviews

CliffsQuickReview Calculus

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I've been teaching myself Calculus using this book as one of my main resources for about a couple of months now and I am learning a lot from it. It may not help much if you need English explanations, but it is great if you are trying to find the bare essentials of understanding a concept or the whole Calculus, and not a whole lot of fluff.

I bought this slim little book when I was first taking Calculus in High School. It helped me immensely with learning and studying Calculus, and provided a great refresher come test time. Since then, I have sometimes needed a formula, and this manual has again been very useful. Calculus is one of those things you forget if you don't use it, and I was in danger of forgetting it when I took a Physics class which required a basic knowledge of Calculus. Thanks in part to this little book, I was able to brush up on the subject and be prepared for my class, though it has been several years since I first learned Calculus in High School and I have had little occasion to use it since.

This quick review will provide an excellent study guide for anyone, like myself, who doesn't use Calculus in everyday life but still doesn't want to forget it. It has definitely proved to be worth its weight in gold for me!

Get this useful little book if your learning Calc form the get go. It will hold its own in your Calc I and Calc II classes. A great supplement.

I would not of survived Calculus I without this handy little book. For a quick review and as a study guide, you cannot beat this little book when compared to your 900 page textbook.

I used this book as a supplement to Calculus I and II courses. Cliffs breaks down limits, derivatives and integration in a very simple way. You don't have to be a "math nerd" to grasp this book. During calculus lectures I would reference the book in class to make sure I understood the professor. There were even a few times when the professor asked to use my Cliffs in class because he knew the book had great examples. Needless to say I got an A in the course. Now as a senior electrical engineering student, I still use it if I need to reference stuff that I forgot.

Just a warning though, if you want to be good in calculus don't just read the Cliffs and your textbook. Dig into the text or cliffs and work a ton of problems (beyond just the assigned homework) and you will pass the course.

This book is barely a review, all it does is state the core concepts. You will neither understand nor be able to use much of what you learn to do in this book, except perhaps the limits section. I'd rather use this as a reference guide than as an outline. For a better outline which presents you with a better background before you delve deep into the topic of Calculus and explains topics and gives you an insight on the theorems, get Schaum's outline of Calculus. Otherwise, get this as a last resort.

Having completed the standard three semesters of calculus as a teenager, many years ago, I periodically need a refresher, and this book was perfect. However, it only reviews the basic calculus normally covered in the first semester of calculus, and part of the second semester. Topics, for example, which are not covered in this book include: sequences and series, parametric equations and polar coordinates, vectors and spatial geometry, partial derivatives, multiple integrals, and vector calculus. However, this book is a nice refresher that can be completed in a short period of time.

Because it covers the essentials, you don't have to spend more time covering topics than necessary to grasp the tools and concepts. I worked all the problems at the end of each chapter, and at the end of the book. I felt that the number of problems was just right: not too few and not too many. Answers are provided. There is an appendix that briefly revisits some examples given in the book, to show how your graphing calculator help you out with these problems. If you read all of the chapters in this book, I definitely recommend that you also read this review of graphing calculators in the appendix. The technology enhances one's study of mathematics tremendously.

For students entering calculus, I think this book is valuable as both a primer and a course supplement. If you only need the first semester of calculus, then this book covers all of the basics. However, you will need a textbook for thorough and in-depth coverage, as well as ample problem sets, to become proficient in the subject. After you've had one semester of calculus, then this book serves as a handy reference.

This book is not without some occasional errors, which are usually in the answers to problems. This is unfortunate for the new student unable to recognize these errors. There is no errata page published on the CliffsNotes website. Of the 42 review questions at the end of the book, the answers provided to six of these questions say, "Provide your own answer." Although these are critical thinking and proof questions, it is still annoying that an extra half-page, or less, wasn't included to provide solutions to these problems.

I didn't purchase my Calculus text book, but I did get this. This is way cheaper and covered pretty much all the material I needed. I did find myself using online resources a little, but this book explains the concepts well and provides good practice problems. Well worth it. There's also a free version online at the Cliffs Notes website.

Unless you are preparing to take a calculus exam consisting of a series of basic differentiation and integration problems, then I really don't see any use for this book. The reviews of what differentiation and integration really are have no depth to them, so those sections are of limited use in bringing you back up to speed in calculus.
This makes the book almost totally a collection of sections of the form:

Here is a type of mathematical expression and this is how we differentiate (integrate) it, with some examples.

One of my college math professors referred to these problems as "plug and chug", where you simply execute the rules without having any real understanding of the concept. Therefore, if you are trying to refresh your understanding of calculus, then this book will be of little value.

I purchased this book because I had a good experience with both the Algebra and Algebra II Quick Review. This book, however has not helped me one bit. It's worse than using the textbook to learn!
The formulas it gives are too complicated and it doesn't even give you any shortcut techniques. I do not recommend this book to anyone who needs supplementary instruction in Calculus.