College Algebra [Hardcover]

Larson (Author), Robert P. Hostetler (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0618313850 | ISBN-13: 978-0618313853 | Publication Date: January 16, 2003 | Edition: 006

This market-leading text continues to provide students and instructors with sound, consistently structured explanations of the mathematical concepts. Designed for a one-term course that prepares students for further study in mathematics, the new eighth edition retains the features that have always made "College Algebra, International Edition" a complete solution for both students and instructors: interesting applications, pedagogically effective design, and innovative technology combined with an abundance of carefully developed examples and exercises.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 816 pages
• Publisher: Brooks Cole; 006 edition (January 16, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0618313850
• ISBN-13: 978-0618313853
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 8.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #244,260 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Again, Larson creates a thorough and CLEAR, May 29, 2003

By 

Jim "nevadacity1" (Nevada City, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: College Algebra, Fifth Edition (Hardcover)

textbook for college algebra.

As with his other texts, Larson approaches subjects from an analytical perspective AND from a graphic/geometric perspective.
This allows students who despise the Xs, Ys, and Zs of algebra to "see" what might otherwise escape them if approached only analytically.

Excellent text.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Hope you have a good teacher., September 19, 2011

By 

ronco - See all my reviews

This review is from: College Algebra (Hardcover)

This book sucks if it's the only tool you have to learn College Algebra. I am currently taking this course and this book sucks as a reference manual. It presupposes that you know quite a bit and offers few examples of concepts being presented. My teacher is less than stellar, as he is excellent at math, but not so hot with the English language. So between this text and my teacher I am having a really hard time grasping anything in this class. I swear I'm learning more from youtube videos and online math labs.
*edit*
Since writing my original review of this book, even my professor agrees that this book falls short in terms of adequately explaining concepts. Most examples are given only in theoretical terms with no examples given using actual numbers to show how make use of the provided formulas. Moreso there is a huge difference between the examples given and the questions that are given as review. Basically, Larson provides examples using the most basic forms, but writes questions that are significantly more complex, making novices completely confused on how to bridge the gap between the two.

The language in the book is extremely cryptic. I often have to re-read portions over and over just to get the gist of what's trying to be said. Most sentences in this book are constructed in such a way you'd think Rubik was the author of this book. I have had less trouble with dissecting and understanding Shakespeare or Aristotle than this book, and I'm not majoring in any form of literature.

The worst thing about this book is the attached Webassign homework system. Hopefully you don't have to use this garbage either. It's a web site where you go to complete homework. It's a good idea in theory, but half the time things don't work. On paper I can finish the assigned problems in less than 10 minutes, but it takes anywhere from 5-30 minutes more to correctly input my answer into this system... and I am no slouch when it comes to interfacing with computers, websites, etc. Also you're given something like 5 tries to get an answer right, so I've wound up getting locked out of answering the question because I used up all my tries attempting to get my answer inputted in a form that the website will accept. One thing that is nice about Webassign is that there's a link labeled "Watch It" for some problems where a video pops up with someone verbally explaining the steps involved in getting to the answer, showing steps on a whiteboard-like display.The problem here is that 1) these aren't available for every problem assigned, so cross your fingers that you already understand that concept, and 2)There are multiple people who narrate these things, so the quality of the explanations vary greatly from narrator to narrator. Some of them do a fantastic job of explaining and writing out the steps, and some basically just repeat the question, combine multiple steps without showing any work and say the answer. It's completely inconsistent. The good videos are usually 5-10 minutes long, but the bad ones are like 30 seconds- 2 minutes, with the bulk of the time spent repeating the question.

This book is garbage, and my belief is anyone saying otherwise is probably well versed in higher-level math and are just skimming this book for a refresher, using it as a reference, or work for the publishing company and want to make sure their pockets stay fat, regardless of whether students learn or not. It's no mystery that new editions of textbooks come out about once a year (because so many things in Algebra change from year to year) so maybe this book is written like this on purpose so a good chunk of students will fail and have to buy the 6th edition next year.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not the greatest teaching instrument, September 26, 2011

By 

Michael Gerard "Myk" (Houston, TX) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: College Algebra (Hardcover)

I'm currently using this book in a college algebra course. I find the book to be very problematic. It assumes that you know too much background information. It gives examples of problems, but often only the most simplistic form of a type of problem leaving you to figure out for yourself the methodology for solving the more advanced versions which may even contain additional steps.

The leap in this book from quality level of example to sophistication level of the actual problems is just unbearable without excellent teaching/tutoring.

It often skips multiple steps in its explanations leaving you scouring the internet for video examples to make up for it's lack of breaking down it's conclusions. It also has an odd organization of including a pre-chapter that contains quite a bit of algebra in it rather than focusing on pre-algebraic information (which it premises to do) so you will find yourself rummaging back to the P chapter just to even begin to do the exercises in the other chapters which is annoying when it would be more intuitive to keep similar information together. In it's defense this book does cover quite an exhaustive amount of material.