Customer Reviews

Geometry, Grades 9-11: Mcdougal Littell Geometry

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

I had to use this book for a UW Independent Learing course because I failed the geometry course offered at my school. It is a great book for talented student that are planning to take more advanced math courses.
When I started the book, it was difficult to follow; (there are very few examples, and a firm grasp of number operations and algebra is needed). But as I moved from one chapter to the next, I developed the skills neccesary to solve difficult geometry problems. I not only learned the content of the book, I also learned how to approach geometry problem with not-so-obvious solutions, and identify certain types of problems quickly. Geometry portions of standerdized tests are now a breeze for me.
I agree that there are too few examples in the book, but as a student develops his problem solving skills, he won't need examples!
My advice for those students who are struggling with a problem is to take a short break and review the parts of the book already read. The book is extremely well integrated, and a student needs to keep in mind what he learned in previous sections.
It is no surprise to me that most teachers really like the book. Most books teach the theorems and postulates, and then give an erormous amount of problem that are essentially the same. They use repition rather than teach critical thinking.
I feel priviliged to have learned from this book. I am a step ahead of my classmates. Awsome book.

This is an awesome book for an honors geometry course. The material is presented in a logical manner. Proofs are emphasized early and often. Homework problems have a wide range of difficulty from easy to prep school challenging. If you are a teacher teaching a non honors course, this is a great resource book for finding problems to challenge your top students.

I do not recommend this book for non honors courses. If you're interested in a non-honors Geometry text, check out Larson's Geometry. There are tons of examples with clear, lengthy explanations. Perfect for the kid who can not handle a rigorous, proof based honors course.

I taught honors Geometry using this book for three years. My students never had trouble doing the 15 or so problems I assigned per night.

In the age of watered down school textbooks, Jurgenson's Geometry is the exception.

I have been using Geometry as the primary text in both my Geometry and Honors Geometry classes for several years. The book is very well organized and has a logical flow of topics. I have been able to teach from this book without changing the topic order. Geometry is a very traditional book, giving a substantial amount of time to the art of writing a two column proof. To me that is one of the objectives of my course; to help students to think logically. If I were to cite any objection to the book it is that I have to work hard to integrate technology into the course since the book does not readily lend itself to that. All in all however, I highly recommend the book.

I taught geometry for five years. I taught with this book and tutored in a neighboring district with the Larson book so I am uniquely and extremely familiar with both books.

The Jurgensen book is superb. The exercises are well thought out and carefully take each level of student through the necessary thinking processes to thoroughly learn each concept. The challenge problems in the C (third) section of the Exercise Sections are perfect for the most capable students. Students who learn with this book will not only have learned geometry but will have honed their critical thinking skills and be well prepared for subsequent math and science courses and for the various standardized tests that they are required to take. I honestly feel sorry for the students who are using some of the other newer books. Those kids will not be competitive with the students who are using Jurgensen. The other texts simply omit the real critical thinking types of problems, even those that are doable for the average high school math student. And the school districts that choose these more "accessible" texts are just setting their students up for future mediocrity. My only thought is that the school district textbook committees simply want to get kids through their courses without parents complaining about grades. There is no other explanation.

I have taught Honors and College Prep Geometry with this book (and its previous edition) for sixteen years.
This year I tried a different book with one of my classes. I am begging to go back to this book.
This book does not have all the 'bells and whistles' of new Geometry textbooks. It doesn't need them. My new textbook has powerpoint presentations, lesson planners, CD ROM testbanks, etc. Guess what? You can have them. They don't present lessons in any manner I would present them, and the test banks don't test the content of the chapter. In addition, I prefer to supplement lessons with my own real life examples and further explanations, not 'canned' material that is found in my current text and its technology.
A good teacher can take this book and raise the bar for academic excellence. No fluff, nothing watered down.
Newer is not better.
I know my students were given a mental workout-challenged themselves- and understood Geometry when I used this book. My classes will be going back to this book soon.
To the reviewers who say there aren't enough examples, that's the point! Geometry is about developing a skill. You can't build a skill if everything is given to you. Push yourself a little harder, don't be afraid to fail, and ask questions. That's how you learn.
The one con is that test questions are not available on a modern CD ROM, eliminating the need to cut and paste (and not giving the ability to change test versions with a click of a button).
Still, the test questions supplied are fantastic.

This book is not Euclid's "The Elements". The Elements, a compilation of many mathematicians' work, was written for mathematicians and their math-dedicated young disciples. Its opening proposition and complex figure reveals that the reader was expected to have a substantial degree of preexistent geometry knowledge.

To reach high school students who have only completed Algebra I, Jurgensen et al labels some theorems postulates to avoid getting bogged down, but so do the other high school geometry textbooks.

This book fulfills its mission to introduce students to a formal system of mathematically analyzing planar figures and objects. If it is carefully read and digested, every problem, including the most-challenging C and C-starred exercises, is solvable. Problems that require the student to write a half-dozen solution/proof statements, and remember (or refresh themselves by re-reading) material from prior sections, and even prior chapters, are commonly encountered (always for the C-level problems).

A small number of exercises require a dozen or so statements in which a student establishes one line of argument, then introduces another, and finally combines them, which is to say, students must be able to organize their thoughts into coherent streams, and then engage in translating visuo-spatial information into mathematical-language statements.

Is this hard? Yes. It takes not only intelligence, but serious effort to fully benefit from studying Jurgensen. Real math isn't something you breeze through. As a student encountering the material for the first time, you may frequently have to read a passage or statement several times, thinking, "I don't get this," then maybe even sleep on it, and then you'll have Eureka moments, "Oh yes! Why didn't I see this before? This is so obvious."

For anyone who wants to think about pursuing university studies in mathematics, engineering, and the sciences, acquiring diligent, persevering work habits is essential. Mathematics is not social studies. For some students the challenge is enjoyable, for others it is painful and a "waste of time". For teachers who find that their students can only consistently answer A-category problems, hit or miss on Bs, and can't even begin to tackle Cs, this book will probably not be satisfactory.

A larger question is when should Euclidean geometry be taught? Should it be taught at all?

I think it is disruptive, and counterproductive to teach algebra I, leave the subject for a full year to study geometry, then jump back to algebra. The trouble is that the "classical" curriculum of the 19th century only taught one course in algebra and then one course in geometry. But as mathematics education was extended, particularly during the Cold War, geometry held its place as the second course in the timetable, but was followed by additional algebra, pre-calculus and calculus, with insufficient thought given to the utility and efficiency of this particular sequence.

Measures such as focusing on analytical geometry (coordinate) exclusively, or nearly so, or teaching algebra II with trigonometry before Euclidean geometry, have been tried in some schools. I know of two schools that no longer even have a "Geometry" titled class. These and other alternatives seem to be working, according to people who are using them.

One thing I would point out is that most state high school graduation requirements today specify the completion of three mathematics units, and many universities require or recommend such. They DO NOT say "three mathematics courses, including geometry". So, for example, if a student is doing well in algebra, I'd say to him or her, stick with it. Go on to algebra II (preferably with trigonometry), precalculus and calculus. Learn about plane figures and solids from a modern perspective. (I can still remember generating the volume of a sphere using integration, and drawing a nicely shaded 3D sphere and discs thirty-something years ago in my second semester of calculus. I thought, "Wow, this is cool!")

So, I think schools should be flexible in their math curricula, and realize there is not a college or university in the country that will ever look at an applicant's transcript and say, "This student took AP Calculus, but there's no 'Geometry' here. Rejection."

If this book is to be used, I would recommend a couple stratagems. One is to for the student to try to prove its theorems before examining the authors' proofs. It's not hard to cover them up with a sheet of paper. This encourages students to acquire conceptual knowledge through active pursuit.

Secondly, students using Jurgensen or most other popular geometry books should subscribe to hotmath.com, where odd-numbered exercises solutions are presented in a thoughtful way, starting with a hint, then progressively revealing steps as the student feels the need to examine them for more help.

There was initially a mixed reception among educators to Hotmath, with some teachers enthusiastically signing up to provide solutions, while others were discomfited by an external knowledge resource that they felt undermined their ability to maintain traditional authority-control over what their students learned.

The disagreement was resolved. The American Mathematical Society invited Hotmath's president to give a lecture at one of its regional conferences several years ago, which was well received. All the leading textbook publishers got on board, which is to say, they recognized that the college-level promulgation of student solutions manuals starting two decades ago had proven to be heuristically sound, and the principle was applicable to college-preparatory mathematics.

For even-numbered exercise homework assignments, students can usually tackle the neighboring odd-numbered ones, check the Hotmath solutions, then apply the same principles to their homework problems.

First off, I noticed that alot of people said they couldn't understand any of the problems. That may be true, but as long you read everything, it should be no problem at all. Besides, this book is recommended for honors math students, so it's supposed to be slightly challenging.

Pros- the book is well designed, end of every chapter has review notes, summary notes chapter tests, and sometimes cumulative exams as well as preparing for college entrance exams. Every section usually begins with some theroms, and they show you how the prove them. THe back of the book has all the definitions, theroms, postulates and test answers. Challenging in a fun way. The cover is also pretty durable

Cons- may be too challenging for the average student.

I am a physician with an undergraduate degree in math and some graduate work in math, as well. Having elected to reenter the world of mathematics after thirty years, I found this text a wonderful exposition to geometry. I did read this after watching a course on geometry published by The Teaching Company, which was quite good as well.

This book is extremely well thought out. The problems range from very accessible to very challenging. The book is thorough and teaches Geometry in the way that it should be taught, with a rich mathematical foundation and many opportunities for students of all abilities to learn to think criticlly. The Teachers' resource materials are excellent. There are two sets of tests, one more accessible and one more challenging. The Reteaching and Practice resource is an excellent source of class work handouts. To me this book is just as fine as the Algebra 1 book from the same series.To the best of my knowledge, this is the best book currently available in the United States. Students who are lucky enough to use this book, will be well prepared for standardized testing.

I have been teaching geometry for over thirty years. I've used this book or an earlier incarnation of it for most of that time. Although the book has it's weaknesses, it is overall thorough and systematic. Negative reviews of this textbook are based primarily on a comparison of this book to watered-down texts now more popular with schools. I also tutor and one of my students explained to me that his school uses a different text, because that text concentrates on material covered on the SAT. I've had students who transfered to another school come back and tell me I made geometry unnecessarily complicated. His new school had an easier text. As another reviewer noted, the textbook committees of many schools are primarily concerned with protecting the reputation of the school by passing students and NOT with the education of the student. They perpetuate mediocrity. Better schools in my area use this textbook, but most often it's only used for "honors" classes.

This is a difficult text, not because it's a bad book, but because it presents a high quality, proof-based exposure to geometry. For years I've been hearing fellow educators taut how courses expose students to higher order thinking. The fact is, education in the United States, especially math education, does not expose students to higher order thinking, but substitutes mechanical processes for true understanding, and politically correct processes like projects and group work for rigor. Schools now use group tests and quizzes so students have a better chance of passing, not a better chance of learning. This begins back at the lowest levels of math education. Geometry is usually the first course of any sort where the student truly has to think. In algebra (not the way it should be taught, but the way it is taught), students memorize mechanical processes without understanding why the process works. If they remember the steps required for a particular type of problem, and get their arithmetic right, they get a correct answer. When a student creates a two-column proof in geometry, reasoning from limited information to a final conclusion, no teacher or text can teach a student to always get a right answer. Getting a right answer involves actual thought and may take time and repeated analysis.

Geometry is a language intensive branch of mathematics. If students don't acquire the vocabulary of the study (definitions, postulates and theorems), they can't "think" about the problem. It's like trying to lear a foreign language without learning vocabulary. This book does a very good job of laying out this "vocabulary", with a few exceptions.

The authors of the book have made the book weaker gradually over the last twenty years. I believe they have done so in an attempt to make the course easier. Unfortunately, they've merely muddied the water. Incongruities and inaccuracies have crept in over the years, but the text still remains the best available.

I suspect the publishers will be dropping this textbook from it's catalog. It hasn't been updated since 1999, although this is unclear. When I last checked with the publisher, they had not made any plans to update it. It is actually beneficial if they don't update it, I suppose, since when they have in more recent years, the book has become of less quality.

Finally, if you have a child taking geometry with this book, count your blessings. Help your child to be successful by having them memorize the vocabulary, postulates and theorems as a first step to understanding. Additionally, encourage them not to give up and keep thinking.