Customer Reviews

Intermediate Algebra (with CD-ROM, BCA/iLrn™ Tutorial, and InfoTrac )

5 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

This has to be one of the worst textbooks ever, as I found out when I took Intermediate Algebra at a Community College the summer after my freshman year.

Its format is to state a theorem, NOT prove or explain it, and then show several examples of numbers being plugged into it. Then there are a whole bunch of problems that are exactly the same; plug a number in and solve. They require absolutely no thinking or synthesis of skills. The whole thing is completely based on rote memory, and it's utterly boring and takes all the fun out of math. Even when it tries to explain stuff in layman's terms (which every math textbook should do as much as possible), it never helps you understand anything better; it just says "remember to apply theorem _."

Theoretically there's a whole bunch of supplemental material online or on the CD-ROM, but let's be honest, nobody's ever going to use that. A good textbook should have everything right there on paper. I don't think I even could get onto the website when I tried, since it was all restricted by passwords that I didn't know.

There are much, much better textbooks out there. Sure, the colors and illustrations are cool, but the book itself is crud.

This book made math fun and easy. Math Rocks!!! As we used to say back in the day, "Full Tilt, Rock and Roll."