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24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Weak Explanations and Fails to Challenge Even the Average High School Student, May 13, 2006
As a long time mathematics tutor and teacher I know this book very well. I don't think the material is presented or explained in a way that is especially helpful for young people. As a tutor I have to constantly reintroduce the topic and/or try to stay ahead of the student's class. Beyond that, the students are asked to do only the simplest of proofs. Additionally, a new topic will be introduced and then no problems appear in the exercise portion of the section to help the student test and practice his or her understanding of the newly introduced topic (and of course, those problems invariably will show up on the chapter exam and the final).
Moreover, I think the book just fails the kids. It seems to omit certain standard concepts by being "accessible" and undemanding of even the most minor critical thinking skills. I believe that both of these shortcomings will leave the student unprepared for the challenging problems on standardized tests and on college entrance exams. Not to mention any sort of subsequent advanced work in high school and college. Another thing about the Larson book is that the answers to many of the problems are so arithmetically peculiar that the student has no feeling that maybe they actually got the right answer. Good problems reassure the student that they are on the right track. Also, once a new concept or definition is introduced it is never repeated.
Overall, I think that the more capable students will be shortchanged and misled into thinking that they know more than they actually do and the less capable student might pass geometry but will perform poorly on college entrance exams and be unable to successfully progress in mathematics if they need to do so.
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23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Poor parsing of concepts and confusing diagrams, October 19, 2005
This textbook is more useful for the flashy (and admittedly very good) teacher's ancillaries. But this review is not for the ancillaries. It is for the text itself.
The text's treatment of proofs is very cursory and not rigorous enough. The diagrams for the algebraic problems are too confusing, compiling numerous different concepts into one problem. While I agree that students must learn to differentiate one property/theorem/rule/postulate from another, it doesn't make sense that most, instead of some, diagrams are over-complicated. Personally, I don't like the format with the examples, mainly because it downplays the necessity for students to become LITERATE in math, not just a good "example comparer." The text has little actual TEXT to speak of.
I have not been teaching HS for very long, but I do not like this book. I am not a textbook dependent teacher, but I do (woefully) recognize that students have poor study skills and don't reference notes all the time. I do not teach out of the textbook and I spend many hours planning lessons, lecture notes, my own examples, etc. I had many complaints that the problems were confusing, included too many ideas at the same time, etc. Some may be successful in "teaching themselves" from the examples, but I am very disappointed that textbooks no longer have TEXT. I may be a math teacher, but I understand the importance of reading and how it helps a person to process the material.
On the other hand, the teacher resources is a great set of worksheets, study masters, note taking guides, etc. Perhaps the authors spent more time on those resources instead of the text.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good In Some Ways; Weak In Others, July 6, 2006
Our school uses this book for all Geometry classes. The book is quite thorough, but serves the teacher more than the students. The students for the most part don't read it; just use it to find the assigned homework problems.
One glaring weakness is on page 306 where Postulate 7 is proven from Postulate 5 in problem 24. After hammering into my students that postulates cannot be proven, there goes the book proving a postulate!
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