Customer Reviews

Economics (McGraw-Hill Economics) 18th Edition

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

FYI: If your thinking about purchasing the Primus E-book instead of the hard copy I urge you not to do it. I did, being gun-ho about technology, and since the two short weeks of my purchase have had nothing but issues. My final straw has been today, Sat. at 10:30am when the website has shut down for "updates" and the "hotline" number is turned off. (You can only access the book through this website -or spend 6 hrs downloading a pdf). They also promise that you can "copy and paste" from the text, but what they don't tell you is your charged every time you do this. I've sent a strongly worded email which will fall on deaf ears, and now I'm going to my next line of defense: Online Reviews! Don't be the next victim, and don't let your friends be the next victium - Primuis E-Book is BAD spread the word! Macroeconomics

For $140 you'd think they'd sell you the whole book, but there is some content (listed below) that is only available on the web. Well, maybe it's available - let me see - you need to login as student, new registration, did you get a registration card with your book? Well, I don't know but it's sure not here now. Well then, you'll have to pay another $16 to access the web content. How would you like to pay?

Honestly, I knew textbook companies were crooks but....

What's missing: chapters on tech and efficiency, developing countries, and the gold-standard and Bretton Woods systems. Also there are worked problems, interactive graphs, and 70 articles on certain histories.

None of this is available for the $140 price. Or maybe it is. Maybe I accidentally threw away my registration card because (silly me) I had no reason to suspect that part of the book was not included with the book. Now, without said card I will have to pony up another $16 to finish buying the book I thought I bought. FU, McGraw-Hill.

This version contains both the micro and macro sections together. There are also separate micro only and macro only versions of the text.

A study guide is available separately: ISBN: 978-0-07-336880-1. The study guide contains a summary of each chapter along with short answer, true/false, and multiple choice questions (with answers).

Two of the chapters (11W & 39W) and one supplement (39S) are only available online in PDF form (from mcconnell18e.com). There is no charge to download these chapters. Other free content like quizzes and interactive graphs can be found on the same website.

Premium content--available for a fee on the same website--includes:
- key questions (the same key questions in the text, but no answers!)
- narrated slides (handy to watch before a class, but not a substitute for reading the text)
- iPod content (the same narrated slides in iPod video and audio format)
- Paul Solomon videos (like a mini lecture)

The version I bought from Amazon did not come with a registration code for premium content, but I was able to sign up for $20.00.

When purchaseing the text, make sure you get the right edition if you want to be able to follow page-by page with instruction... I first got the Softcover international edition, but had to then get the regular hardcover because the page layout was different... If you are taking any tests on computer systems like Moodle, Blackboard, etc, get the study guide as well. Our instructor had us divy into groups of 6, each group bought the study guide and we worked from it that way. Makes understanding the tests and test layout much easier. (The tests are abstract versions of the book information- they do not follow, relate or co-incide with any of the book layouts... I think the test creators were more concerned with writing questions to beat eachother in competition than writing questions designed to apply the text information logically. First rule of test question creation- make sure you are building the foundation of comprehension and knowledge to the students, instead of trying to impress the authors and win a contest against the other question creators (most often graduate students...).) And the online content- why is there a cost for supplemental information?

This is a good book that is fairly understandable given the material (Economics), but for 2010 it is outdated. The economy is described to 2007 and the outlook on the horizon is pretty positive. Not!

GENERAL:

If you decide to pay $60~ for the online McGraw Hill's Connect, you don't have to because all the Connect questions are already inside the textbook. If, however, you are required to get the online membership so your teacher can grade you on the online questions, be warned that the questions are vague and hard to understand.
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ONLINE MATERIAL PROBLEMS:

The Online Study Questions can grade the multiple choice but it *cannot* grade the short answer questions correctly.

The questions are also ambiguous, for example the Connect questions will ask you to draw a curved PPF graph using a table of data given. Then it will ask you what the X is on a random point on the PPF curve when given a Y-axis along the curve (ie. If y=5 coffee beans, what is x=? on the parabolic PPF curve). To solve that would require Calculus. And then the answer needs to be within .5 of a decimal place.

Sometimes the same, exact question will appear 3x in a row. This is gross oversight.
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TEXTBOOK:

The textbook glosses over important details such as "opportunity cost" in 2 sentences and is described without examples, other than alluding to free lunches. Instead of explaining definitions and concepts, the textbook teaches it to you as if you're already expected to know.

For example, in teaching the Law of Increasing Opportunity Costs, the textbook uses a graph and states moving from Point A to B will sacrifice x units of Item#1 for x units of Item #2. And then it says that illustrates the Law of Increasing Opportunity Cost, and that's it for the entire explanation in the textbook for that concept.

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I highly recommend you go with "William J. Baumol & Alan S. Blinder - MACROECONOMICS: Principles and Policy 11th edition." (They also have a MICROECONOMICS version). The author taught at Princeton University and the textbook is more clear.

Their online APLIA website is significantly better than McGraw Hill's in terms of clearer questions, better software, and accurate descriptions that even explain every correct/incorrect answer. They tie in concepts with examples, explain everything in depth, and easy-to-understand English instead of McGraw Hill's concepts (weak examples) and vague online questions (with no explanation for wrong answers).

Just be aware, the popularity of a textbook doesn't mean the material is well-written.
I am upset they charged me so much for the Connect, when presented with such bad software. This is a complaint among my other class students too. I am letting you other students know what you're getting into. I would avoid the course that has a professor using this textbook, or if you must use this textbook, get the professor that teaches from his lecture notes instead of the book.

Chapters have changed since the 17th edition, hard to get information straight when talking about Macro and Micro. You have to start in chapters one thru three then you go to chapter 27 thru 34 then go back to 5. It is almost as if the 18th edition was done by someone who never taught.

This book was difficult to understand for me. I liked the section reviews within the chapters and the chapter summary. Other than that I didn't find reading the chapters helpful. They say the same thing 3 ways and convulte the topic

The text is great, the presentation and publisher are horrible.
McGraw Hill's Connect feature is just about the worst designed online homework service out there (I've used several others). It's slow, it will drop your connection and your answers. It isn't encrypted like the other services out there, so if you enter any personal information or someone happens to be just a little malicious your answers can be altered. If you have any choice in the matter (your professor hasn't assigned this) do not use this service.

The test questions often have incorrect information as can be easily seen in practice tests that outline the discrepancy between the stated problem and the numbers the program uses to calculate your now incorrect score! It is obviously written by English as a Second Language writers with numerous significant grammatical errors. Also, the form fill feature that you might see for entering shipping addresses online? This saves your answers into the text boxes - great for when you've answered everything and then get disconnected, bad for when you're trying to learn or take a quiz.

As a college student fronting the bill all by myself I look for quality at a good price. This book far exceeded my expectations. I bought this book at over 80% cheaper than my school's book store's price. I was a bit nervous about the condition due to such savings but when I opened up the package I was astonished at how great the condition was! This truly was a great book at a great price-better yet, its an economics book so it makes more cents economically.