Customer Reviews

Precalculus: Functions and Graphs

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

Swokowski's problems are many. The most prevelant I have encountered in using this book is the fact that he often leaves much up to the reader. Often he will give an example of some property and then leave it up to the reader to figure out how he obtained his solution. Other times he will give an abstract explanation of a solution, and leave it up to the reader to develop a practical method.

This is simply unacceptable. While, for real science majors, it is of utmost importance to develop inductive reasoning it's rediculous to do so this overtly.

I am an exceptional mathematical student, with a major focusing on mathematics, and I often have to spend hours deciphering Swokowski's explanations. Truly, this book is a great exercise for any lover of riddles, but I did not pay to be puzzled, I paid to be taught.

Since the last reviewer felt it necessary to single out those of us who dislike this book as "unable", I'll make it known that I have been an exemplary math student throughout my academic career and I have a well earned 93% average in my precalculus class.

The discussion in this book is anything but "lucid." The authors will spend whole pages covering basic topics (that any third grade student should understand) and then brush through the new material in one unintelligible paragraph, an incomprehensible definition or proof and a maximum of two examples. Even the calculator instructions given are a chore to read (I stopped doing so several weeks ago, preferring the manual included with my calculator, which says more than enough).

If you know in advance that your professor uses this book, take a different class (unless your professor is one of the 2% of them who will actually cover the material in class). If its already too late, I suggest you invest in some clear, concise study aids.

I have a BS in mathematics and I found this book---both as a student and as a tutor---to be less-than helpful for calculus preparation.

This book is horrible!! The explanations are needlessly wordy and don't do much to improve my understanding of math. Also, the homework is poorly designed: instead of building each new problem on older ones, everything is a scattered mess. Professors, please don't use this book just because you know Swokowski has been writing textbooks forever and he's the standard you're used to. I'm a GOOD student and I can safely say that this book is worthless.

This is the required textbook for my precal class. So, I had no choice but to buy it. From reading through it, I understood the examples very well. If you order the solutions manual as I did, this helps even more. I am also buying precal for dummies, so it can help even more!

I received a 96% grade in precalculus using this book. So why am I rating it so low? The book more or less forces you to buy the solutions manual. Basic concepts of the material are covered in the explanations preceding the homework problems in superfluous detail, yet harder concepts and ones that are key to tackling the homework are missing. Some of these concepts can be ascertained through reasoning, others cannot.

Some sections have homework with problems where the tools needed to solve the problem are not even introduced until several sections later! I ran into this several times. I'm sorry, but being a mathematical supergenius that can do his own proofs for concepts that he has never been taught should not be a requirement for finishing the given problems! If I was that good at math there would be little need for this book. I'm the type of person who will sit there for hours before I give up on a problem- I HAVE to finish all the problems- so you can understand how upset this makes me.

I finally had to give in and buy the solutions manual because there were a few selected problems that were 100% impossible without it. Some of the problems are very hard, which is fine, but when I do not have the tools needed to finish a problem, I have to just throw my hands in the air. It seems like some of the problems were written by lazy grad students who didn't bother to read the explanations to see what was covered, or switched problems from previous editions around to different sections without thinking. Either that or that authors are incompetant.

To the guy who implied that you can't pass calculus if you are having trouble with this book, untrue! The calculus book i'm using right now is actually, dare I say it, EASIER than this precal book. There's a difference between hard and badly written. Stay away.....

I have studied numerous math books ranging from arithmetic to differential equations and I can say, without a doubt, that this book is terrible. This book has everything that is unneeded, including idiotic homework problems, esoteric explanations with long-winded overlycomplicated language. For instance, problem 50, page 290, show that the graph of f inverse is the reflection of the graph of f through the line y=x by verifying the following conditions. then it goes on to list three conditions. The conditions they list are just those used to define an inverse function. In other words they are asking the student to graph something using the information they gave them; how does that help the student, especially considering it was already shown earlier in the section? The math teachers I know had to present the sections out of their original order because the book is so hopelessly unorganized. One example is the fact that they gave the student a newtons law of cooling problem 2 sections before introducing it in the text; how stupid is that?I wish I could give this book a zero star rating.

This book provides excellent coverage of every topic that should be covered in the precalculus curriculum. Despite some negative reviews by precalc. students (see number 4 above), if you are not ready to handle the material in this book, you are not going to be ready to pass calculus. There are other so-called precalculus books out there that are watered down, that don't cover as many topics, and that have much easier homework -- as a calculus instructor, I can promise you that these books will not teach you what you need to know to pass calculus. A student who complains that the book "makes you think for yourself" doesn't realize that that is exactly what the book is supposed to do. The real difficulty these students are experiencing is that there is too much material to be covered in precalculus to finish in a single semester. If your school is making you finish this 800-some page book in a single semester, the difficulties you are experiencing are due to the speed with which the material is covered, not the book.

this book is terrible at teaching the material for each section. the examples are too simple and basic that they do not compare to the problems listed inside the book....if it wasn't for the extra tutoring at my school i don't know how i will pass my class with only this book

The person who wrote the first comment for this book was exactly correct. Another thing worth noting that runs along the same lines is that the examples do not prepare you for problems that follow. The problems which are demonstrated are signifficantly easier. For instance the book might show you how 1+1=2, yet you are expected to problems such as (4/2)+(3/6)=?.