Elementary Geometry For College Students Third Edition [Hardcover]

Alexander (Author), Daniel C. Alexander (Author), Geralyn M. Koeberlein (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 061822176X | ISBN-13: 978-0618221769 | Publication Date: July 1, 2002 | Edition: 3

The Third Edition of Elementary Geometry for College Students covers the important principles and real-world applications of plane geometry with additional chapters on solid geometry, analytic geometry, and trigonometry. The text's largely visual approach, strongly influenced by both NCTM and AMATYC standards, begins with the presentation of a concept followed by the examination and development of a theory, verification of the theory through deduction, and finally, application of the principles to the real world. Designed with the appropriate pacing and appearance for college-level students, this text offers a welcome alternative for instructors who, in the past, have had to use secondary-level texts for this course.

• Videotapes, professionally produced for this text and hosted by Dana Mosely, offer a valuable resource for further instruction and review.
• Reminder marginal notes reinforce theorems or formulas from previous chapters to help students progress through the course.
• Enhanced Chapter Openers introduce students to the principle notion of the chapter and provide real-world context.
• Discovery features designed to reinforce the inductive approach of this text include activities that enable students to discover geometry concepts on their own and section tools that provide students with hands-on application of concepts.
• Applications throughout text reinforce the connection of geometry to the real world. A Look Beyond chapter-ending sections provide engaging sketches, sometimes with historical background.
• Summaries of constructions, postulates, and theorems are provided to reinforce learning. In addition, a numbering system for postulates and theorems presents a user-friendly structure.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 502 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company; 3 edition (July 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 061822176X
• ISBN-13: 978-0618221769
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 8.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #502,344 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Obscure and VagueThis Book Does It All, September 22, 2005

By 

J. E. Nolan Jr. (Bozeman, MT USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Elementary Geometry For College Students Third Edition (Hardcover)

The instructions in this book are vague at best. The authors appear to be rushing the student through the fundamentals of Geometry without ever explaining how things work. The homework sections are a JOKE! The authors have given "solutions" to selct problems in the book, but do not explain how those answers are achieved. The book gives basics and ideas in the text then provides exercises with answers to some of the exercises. It would be much more helpful if they chose some of the problems to show a solution. Telling the student that the angle is 35 degrees does absolutely no good if the book does not tell the student WHY it is 35 degrees. If you have a great teacher who is willing to spend some time explaining in detail and going over the exercises in detail you may be o.k. with this book. If your teacher does not do these things then this book will hurt you more than it helps. If I could give it no stars I would have.

35 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Worst Text Book EVER, June 1, 2005

By 

Kellie (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Elementary Geometry For College Students Third Edition (Hardcover)

Who am I to say this? I'm a 35-year-old college student with a 3.5 GPA, studying for a B.A. in English and Graphic Design in the Chicagoland area. I'm not that great in math but I with studying, good teachers and decent text books, I've passed all my math classes so far with As and Bs. I'm not the smartest person in the world but I am no dummy. Elementary Plane Geometry was required but I thought it might be interesting and maybe fun as I had NEVER taken a Geometry class before.

This book was completely useless. In fact, I ONLY used it to do the problems assigned to me by the teacher. I did not use this book to study nor as a reference guide. I used it as a coaster and a door stop a few times. My fellow students HATED it as well.

*There were NO examples of how to do the homework assignments.

*This book did not give you steps on how to solve problems.

*This book did not explain why an answer was what it was.

Opening up this book, to me, was like telling a 5-year old to go build a rocket and speak Chinese.

Instead of using this book, I barely passed the class by going every week to the tutors at school's study center (who, by the way, did not understand the "instructions" in this book either and had to read the chapters all the way through so they could teach me how the authors did the problems), my husband who is a mechanical engineer (who also hated this book and thought it was the worst math book he's ever seen) struggled through the text book with me, *and* I checked Geometry for Dummies out of the local library which helped a little.

If you are a school administration looking into using this book, I beg you to please not.

If you are a student that has been assigned this book, you should start lining up additional help now.

3 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Geometry Text Ever!, October 20, 2008

By 

Matthew Sessoms "MATH GEEK" (Roseboro, NC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Elementary Geometry For College Students Third Edition (Hardcover)

I had to take a geometry course for my major in math and this is the text we used. I'm currently in my junior year taking this course. I'm not sure how the other reviewers come to his or her conclusions about this text. Maybe they did not have a strong mathematical background. It is recommended to take two semesters in calculus and a proof writing course such as abstract algebra before tackling geometry. Not saying that one use the materials learned in these courses, but these courses perpare a student for a well rounded math background.

As the title of the book, this is an elementary geometry text. Elementary meaning Euclidean geometry. More advanced geomoetry includes non-Euclidean gemoetry such as hyperbolic and spherical geometry.

But anyway, this text provides very clear wording and easy to follow problems. All the problems at the end of each section are clearly describe within the section.