The Complete Idiot's Guide to Geometry [Mass Market Paperback]

Denise Szecsei Ph.D. (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 4, 2004 | ISBN-10: 1592571832 | ISBN-13: 978-1592571833

Geometry is hard. This book makes it easier. You do the math. This is the fourth title in the series designed to help high school and college students through a course they'd rather not be taking. A non-intimidating, easy-to-understand companion to their textbook, this book takes students through the standard curriculum of topics, including proofs, polygons, coordinates, topology, and much more.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Denise Szecsei, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of mathematics at Stetson University where she teaches finite mathematics, mathematical modeling, and geometry, as well as a variety of liberal arts mathematics classes. Professor Szecsei developed a geometry class for liberal arts students and elementary education majors and has taught this class over the last three years, giving her firsthand knowledge of how to explain the concepts of geometry to those whose career paths will likely have little to do with the subject.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Alpha (May 4, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1592571832
• ISBN-13: 978-1592571833
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,494,877 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

58 of 60 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A pleasant surprise, June 5, 2005

By 

Sum Kinda Math Geek (Kitchener ON Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Geometry (Mass Market Paperback)

I recently needed a book to review my high school geometry (not having seen that sort of math for over 15 years, and not having any other text on hand) and went to the local bookstore to look at the selection. One of the available choices was this book. I had always been wary of the "Idiot's Guide's" books, mainly because I expected that they were superficial hacks slapped together to get a quick buck from genuine idiots who didn't know any better. Well, I was wrong...

The material in this book was well laid out and thorough. Although she didn't cover everything you might find in a typical high school geometry course, Dr. Szecsei certainly aimed for the highlights, and left me quite satisfied with the results. I would expect that a typical buyer (high school or early college student?) would like this book as an explainable version of his or her assigned course textbook.

The reading pace was zippy and didn't get bogged down in gory details, but still laid the foundation to tackle more difficult geometric proofs. There were also some tantalizing highlights towards the end of the book for those interested in non-Euclidean geometry, which might inspire the occasional student in looking beyond the standard high school curriculum.

The format was geared towards examples and proofs, with a few problems at the end of each chapter for the adventurous student to work out on his or her own. Complete solutions to all the problems were provided at the end of the book. Also provided was a summary of all postulates and theorems. This is a handy feature that I wish a few more math textbook authors picked up.

The only flaw in the book that I found was some of the diagrams were completely incorrect. Although this could have lowered the rating from a "5" to a "4", having found just a few errors like this out of the hundreds of diagrams in the book does not really detract from its value, but I felt bound to mention it only for the struggling student that could accidentally waste valuable time re-creating the actual diagram to go along with the proof provided. An errata website would have been helpful, but I didn't see anything. Maybe next time.

All in all, this book was excellent, and completely changed my opinion of the "Idiot's Guides" series.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not worth it., January 14, 2007

By 

L. Watson "Liw" (Texas) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Geometry (Mass Market Paperback)

I bought this book so I could freshen up my geometry skills for the GRE. It is full of mistakes! Nothing like trying to check your answer to a problem and finding that the key is answering a different question. This was not a mathematical mistake. The problem restated in the key was different than the practice problem. Also, I found mistakes in some of the if-then exercises. Looked over it for about 20 minutes trying to figure out what was wrong, rereading the lesson and looking at the example. The example was wrong! They showed the correct answer, but the work to get to it was not completely correct. Awful editing. I finally quit using this book and used my ETS GRE prep book and focused on their math review.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Idiot's Guide to Geometry, December 23, 2007

By 

L. Massova (Minnesota) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Geometry, 2nd Edition (Paperback)

This is a very poorly edited book, with dozens of misprints and mistakes that are essential to understanding. Angles and triangles can be labeled incorrectly, so you are trying to prove the unprovable theorem, or the wrong formula can be listed and you need to find the correct one in a different chapter. Sometimes mistakes are obvious when an acute angle is labeled obtuse, and sometimes they take a lot of time to figure out. Just a few examples (these are from the last test) - none of the multiple choice answers to the problem 41 are correct (the correct answer should be 6), the answer to problem 57 is wrong (the correct answer is C, or 1/2), the problem 58 is stated wrongly - impossible to solve, same for problem 59. The answer key to Chapter 19 is missing altogether. These are just a few from the long list of never-ending mistakes. Save yourself time and frustration, get another geometry textbook.