Painless Geometry (Barron's Painless) [Paperback]

Lynette Long (Author)

Book Description

Series: Barron's Painless

Titles in Barron's Painless Series are textbook supplements designed especially for classroom use by middle school and high school students. The approach of each title is an appeal to students who think that the subject is boring, or too difficult, or both. The authors, all experienced educators, take a light approach, showing kids what is most interesting about each subject, and how seemingly difficult problems can be transformed into fun quizzes, brain-ticklers, and challenging puzzles with rational solutions. Geometry becomes painless--and even fun--once students learn the subject's basic components and see how solving any geometric problem is fitting parts together to solve an intriguing puzzle. They learn the meaning of postulates and theorems, discover angles of all kinds, find the relationships that exist between parallel and perpendicular lines, and discover the characteristics of shapes such as triangles, quadrilaterals, and circles. The author introduces real-world geometry experiments to make concepts less abstract, offers study strategies, and demonstrates how mini-proofs are the first step toward understanding formal geometry proofs.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

(back cover)
Really. This isn't going to hurt at all . . .

Understanding geometry is really nothing more than learning how to solve fascinating puzzles involving lines and shapes of many different kinds. This book takes you step by step through the process of discovering the relationships that exist between parallel and perpendicular lines and analyzing the characteristics of distinct shapes such as circles, quadrilaterals, and triangles. You'll also learn how principles of geometry can help you solve many real-world problems, and you'll find ideas for interesting projects. Amusing "Brain Tickler" quizzes will help take the pain out of study and improve your grades.

For Middle School and High School Students --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Barron's Educational Series (July 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0764117734
• ISBN-13: 978-0764117732
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,039,610 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Lynette Long has an M.S. in mathematics and a Ph.D. in psychology. She has taught math and was a professor of education, specializing in mathematics education. She is the author of several children's math books, including Dazzling Division and Marvelous Multiplication, both published by Wiley.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

76 of 84 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Definitely NOT for homeschool!, October 6, 2002

By 

RLB - See all my reviews

This review is from: Painless Geometry (Barron's Painless) (Paperback)

Since I'm homeschooling my high school sophomore this year, I've been spending time looking at math books. "Painless Geometry" seemed like a good bet. Profusely illustrated (albeit with silly monkey pictures) and written in plain English, it looked like just what we'd want.

That's until I started actually using the book. First of all, who ever heard of a 300-page reference book with only three pages of index? How are you supposed to find things that way? It's missing things like the base of a triangle (the index has neither "base" nor "triangle:base") and how to label an angle. The information's in the book, but you certainly can't find it using the index. Not only that, but the pages aren't labeled like a normal book, with the name and number of the chapter at the top or bottom of each page. You can't find your place in a book that way!

There's little depth to the book. There are experiments with pencil and paper, but no real-world examples of where you'd use geometry. Area is calculated in "square units" with no discussion of real units of measure. Pi is introduced with a single paragraph. No explanation is given of its rich history, how it's calculated, or applicability throughout mathematics.

The oversimplifications in this book may make life difficult later. The book states that all angles are measured in degrees, and the degrees symbol is generally omitted. Whatever happened to radians? In one of the problems, she asks for the area of a circle with diameter of ten. The correct answer is 100 times pi. The book states the answer as 314. That's an approximation, not an answer!

Then we started finding the mistakes. Typos like "Computer the area of a circle" (page 184) I can live with. It's hard core mistakes like these I can't tolerate:

The reader is asked to identify what type of triangle has angles of 120, 35, and 35 degrees (page 101). The answer says it's isosceles and obtuse. In reality, it's not a triangle at all, as the angles don't add up to 180 degrees!

How's this for a statement of the Side-Angle-Side postulate (page 126)? "If two sides and the included angle of one triangle are congruent to two triangles and the included angle of a second triangle, then the triangles are congruent." Huh?

There's a "super brain tickler" on page 163 which indicates, according to the answers in the book, that for squares, rhombuses, rectangles, and parallelograms, all four sides are parallel! No. Four parallel line segments wouldn't ever meet. Those four shapes have two sets of parallel sides, not one set of four parallel sides!

.... That tends to leave us with drek like "Painless Geometry."

All in all, I found this book to be poorly proofread, ridded with errors, badly indexed, oversimplified, and disconnected from the real world. It may be good as an adjunct for a student having trouble with a real geometry book, but only if there's someone around to explain what "Painless Geometry" omits or misstates.

31 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Have you used this book?, January 27, 2006

By 

wonderactivist "wonderactivist" (Great Plains) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Painless Geometry (Barron's Painless) (Paperback)

I've been meaning to write a review to respond to those on this page for a while. I guess I have used so many math books that contain an error or two that I just can't possibly throw away such a good book over that.

The fact is that we homeschool and my son LOVED this book which we picked up at the library. It is full of wonderful, hands-on work and SIMPLE explanations that make geometry easier to understand than most other books we tried - yes, truly understand because you not only had it explained well, but also "did" something on paper or folding paper to experience it.

He enjoyed it so much that when I picked up another Painless book at the used book store, he wanted to start it that day, rather than waiting 'til next semester.

So I don't know if y'all just glanced at the book or really tried it, but this family tried it and loved it - and I own a red marker so I can cross out the one incorrect answer I found in my edition!

30 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not Very Good, December 29, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Painless Geometry (Turtleback School & Library Binding Edition) (Painless...(Sagebrush)) (School & Library Binding)

On page 16, it is stated that the area of a circle is pi times the diameter. Is there anybody out there who DOESN'T know that the area of a circle is pi times the square of the radius? That error wouldn't such a big deal, except that there are plenty more to come. I don't recommend this book to anyone.