Customer Reviews

Schaum's Outline of Calculus (Fourth Edition)

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I found this book to be a very good supplement to anyone taking a calculus course. The main highlights (and some, but few) lowlights are as follows:

The Good:
1. LOTS and LOTS of topics covered ranging from limit concepts to l'Hopital's rule to integral tests to multiple integrals, this book covers A LOT (and even a brief intro to differential equations.)

2. Enough practice problems to ensure that the reader will comprehend the material (as is the case with most Schaum Outline books).

3. Lots of graphs for visual learners.

4. A fraction of the price of most calculus books.

The Bad:
1. The only bad thing I could possibly think of in this book is that it explains vector concepts and differentiation and integration of vector functions and gradient, divergence, and curl, but leaves out Green's and Stokes' theorems (must be covered in the vector analysis Schaum book).

For more detail, check out the list of chapter topics on the back cover of the book (it's a pretty thick paragraph)

I've worked with several versions of the Schaum's Calculus
over the years. This work has excellent coverage of derivatives,
integrals, curvilinear motion, polar coordinates, indeterminate
forms, indefinite integrals, centroids, arc length, tests for
divergence/convergence, partial derivatives, volumes, triple
integrals and a host of exotic areas. There are many multi-
dimensional diagrams to aid in your understanding of this
fairly complex subject. I did well in Intermediate Calculus

garnering an "A". In addition, the Fundamentals of Engineering
Licensure Exam covered quite a bit of basic and intermediate
calculus. This is an excellent supplementary work to complement
the course textbook and class notes.

This outline will work best for those looking for a concise supplement to their course text. The strength of this outline is in the solved problems. The weakness is in the explanation of concepts. As advertised, the book contains over 1100 fully worked problems. These problems are indeed fully worked and looking over them can be of tremendous value if you are struggling with solving particular problems in your class. If you are having a tough time with the concepts rather than the problems of calculus I would not recommend this book. The explanations are kept to a bare minimum and tough topics like delta-epsilon proofs and Reimann Integrals are not explained in detail. For instance, this book will not try to justify why you can set delta equal to epsilon to complete your limit proof, it just tells you to do it (which is exactly what you need to do to solve the problem). In other words, this book will help you solve the problems you need to solve in order to pass your exams, but it will not necessarily help you understand why those solutions work. So please do not buy this thinking it will have fuller conceptual explanations. Its strength is in its fully solved problems.

My instructor had a nervous breakdown about 1 month into an integral calculus class. He spent the rest of the semester discussing his personal problems during class, instead of teaching. He stopped giving tests and cancelled his office hours. We had a midterm, which I failed (with a 28/100), along with the rest of the class. My entire grade hinged on the final exam. I bought this book and spent the last half of the year using this book to teach me integral calculus. Two weeks before the final, the instructuor told the class that he was throwing out the midterm, and that our grade for the class would be based solely on our performance on the final exam.

I got a 96/100 on the final, and an "A" for the course. This book saved me. (This sounds ridiculous, I know...but it is absolutely true.)

A good overview of calculus, though--admittedly--I am using it to review the subject rather than learn it for the first time. Very practical, and offers enough examples to get the hang of it in most cases.

However, the egregious number of serious errors in the book (in a 4th edition?!) can often be frustrating if not misleading. Some errors are misstatements of theorems or errors in the worked problems! Others include mislabeled graphs, incorrect PROBLEMS (yes!), incorrect answers etc. Believe, me, I've spent hours checking my work, assuming I had made the mistake (but have verified using mathematica, graphing calculators etc.) For someone working nearly every problem, this leads to a lot of confusion and a huge waste of time. I estimate that I have found 20-30 major errors already, and I've only finished the chapters covering calculus of a single variable. :(

If they had errata published, it might be a little better, but haven't been able to find any.

Unfortunately, haven't tried other review texts...probably better just to get a real calculus book. I've forgotten the one I used in high school and subsequently sold. :(

A good, fast review of your first two college semesters
of calculus. A lot of material covered, 59 chapters, 575
pages but take note, it isn't called an outline for nothing.
The worst problem is the problem that mars many technical
efforts such as this - errors. Errors are abundant, especially
in the figures containing graphics right where you don't
need them most. If you are looking for a review like I was,
it will work, but don't take this route your first time
through.

Academia can be a tremendous waste of time and effort, and a constant source of emotional drain. However, don't let the growing feeling of 'campus craziness' or 'egotist professor' hold sway. Calculus I, II (especially), and III (if you've passed II, III is a breeze) are absolutely essential to any education focused on the economic, science, or engineering career fields. My advice: go to lecture, read schaums, only gander at your text for formulas or specifically mentioned examples or equations. Schaums is a better text than most others, even thought it is reheasely labelled 'cheap substitue for a good text.' This can be so, but as I've experienced in reading many of Schaums outlines, they are far and away the learning tool of choice. Best aspect of Schaums calculus outline is that it can be used for Calc. I, II, and III and has enough unintuitive examples and solved problems so as to make itself more than commensurate with what you pay. Three dimensional diagrams exposing polar coordinates and their rates of change are as exceptional as those you'll stare upon in any standard book. High fives to the editors and publishers at Schaums! Any typos or mistakes are frequently related to a mistyped variable or omission of a fractional quantity - in essence, you should be able to notice an oddity and plow on through after quickly scanning previous equations to self-insert or correct whatever the editor let go awry. Sequences and Series are a difficult concept for entry level students, and nowhere will they become more evident then here, in Schaums analysis of Taylor Series, Binomial expansions, Maclaurian Series, etc. Integration techniques that so often puzzle the student later on in more advanced courses could not be made more understandable and memorable - which is key to learning calculus. You'll start memorizing techniques and tricks only by following the written solutions by writing them out yourself - thinking about how the solution is arrived at and how the equations are manipulated may help too! Obviously! Bottom line: math and science are easier said than done. So get out there and peruse as many Schaums as you please so that, in later times, you can 'say' you've 'done' the dirty work.

This book was a bummer, man. I LOVED the Schaum's Outline for PreCalculus and it was awesome. This book however, left me wanting more. It needs more SOLVED exercises. In each section you get about 3-5 solved problems and then 10-15 problems with answers without solutions. I bought this book hoping it would be a supplement to my text book, but it just didn't have enough step-by-step solutions which is what I need when I'm learning new material.

I first got acquainted with this particular Schaum's outline when I was a senior in high school back in 1975. It was an essential companion through my senior year and through all three semesters of calculus in college. Through its various revisions it has been one of the more valuable Schaum's outlines I have ever encountered, and I would highly recommend it to any calculus student whether you are doing fine with the material or not. If you are struggling, it acts as a study guide with clear explanations, examples, and figures. If you are OK with the material, it supplies plenty of interesting practice problems to prepare you for exams. If your precalculus is weak, the first eight chapters of the book act as an excellent mini review of that material. Chapters nine through 57 take you through the material you will find in a complete sequence of courses on calculus. Chapters 58 and 59 are additional material. Chapter 58 is a sort of applications chapter on masses of variable density, and chapter 59 is a very brief introduction to ordinary differential equations, which would be your next step past calculus in your journey in applied undergraduate mathematics. The only negative I can really speak of is that Chapter 53, on vector differentiation and integration, seems out of place in the book. There is just enough information presented to confuse the average reader. If you are interested in vector calculus, there is an entire excellent Schaum's outline dedicated to that one subject, and I suggest you not read Chapter 53 of this book and purchase the Schaum's outline of Vector Analysis, which goes into suitable detail on the subject. Another tip- after you pass calculus and even after you graduate keep this book around, particularly if you are an engineer. You will find yourself looking up concepts you have forgotten for years to come.

In order to take an advanced statistics course (since I have been out of college awhile) I have to take a calculus test. They gave me a sample of 60 questions from prior years and recomended a text that cost $180!!!

Well for 1/15 of the price of the expensive text, I can get about 55 out of 60 questions answered through this one. The ones that are not covered in this book pertain to complex integrations - I'll buy the Schaum's Advanced Calc text and get my answers and still have tons of money left over.

*** Another thing is that the first few chapters are an excellent review of pre-calc, something I did not think I would need but it turns out to be more useful than I thought. ****

The covering of some topics, like LaHopital's rule is better than most texts.

I have not encountered typos yet - when I have that that I did - once I plunge into it more - turns out he is right and I was mistaken.

****Having numberous worked out problems and problems with at least the solutions to check yourself is GREAT FOR SELF STUDY ****