Customer Reviews

The Fast Forward MBA in Business Math

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As someone who is about to enter the MBA program at UC Berkeley--and one who was an English major as an undergrad--I heeded the advice of my admissions department and acquired a number of books on math and accounting fundamentals. This one was not nearly as dry as many of the others I've plowed through, and I think I've emerged with a pretty solid foundation of math skills after finishing the book.

However, I do have two qualms with this work: 1) There is little by way of practice exercises. An occasional "try this" problem pops up here and there, but the book does not offer a great deal of practice with the material. Instead it moves pretty quickly from one concept to the next, and as one who knew very little about such areas as discount rates and coupons, a few drills to drive this material home would have been very welcome.

2) This book also was not edited very well. Here and there you will find numerical mistakes, e.g., during a lesson it will tell you to enter "10" for the time period on you financial calculator. In such instances, a graphic is provided that shows what you should be keying into your instrument (say, 10 for the time period, 8 for the rate, etc.). However, the graphic does not always jibe with the text; where the text would say "enter 10" the corresponding area of the graphic might say "enter 11". This was very confusing at first because by following the graphic I was not reaching the answer that the text said I should. This happened at least eight times before page 100 and was extraordinarily annoying and really hindered progress for a bit until I realized that I had to double-check all of my data entry when I went by what the graphics said.

Otherwise, this book is worth a read.

Having recently completed my MBA I look back and realize how much of a help this book was to me during my program. The author is able to take complex subject matter and reduce it to simple, unerstandable concepts. The chapter on TVM was especially helpful.