Customer Reviews

Schaum's Outline of Theory and Problems of Probability (2nd Edition)

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

 

 

This book, like so many other Schaum's outlines, helped me years ago by giving me hundreds of problems and solutions.

Now, I use this book as a supplement to college courses i teach in probability theory. It is the best book for simplifying problems that confuse many students. It helps make the material far more accessible.

One person claimed the book was sexist; the book is ACCURATE. In every college i have any knowledge of, there are many more men than women in the math and phsyics courses. This is how the current world is. Bottom line: this book will help women and men learn probability theory.

I picked up this book upon a recommendation from my college bookstore. In class, we're using "A First Course in Probability" by Sheldon Ross. The book is too dry and made me fail the first test. Upon picking up this book though, I was able to do a lot of practice problems, was able to understand most concepts but more importantly, pass the class with an "A". I would recommend this book to anyone struggling in their probability class.

I picked this book without realizing that it is meant for high school students. Thus the book is very basic and really only goes into Gaussian distributions.

My real complaint with this book is the notations used to represent some equations are non-standard. As well it is quite heavy on the mathematical shortcuts like
S={x:x is N C Z C R} which really means S is equal to x, such that x is a natural/positive integer contained in all integers positive or negative which is contained in all real numbers. (Whew!) The book seems to do this often. (trying to impress rather than teach?)

I felt its definition of random variables was poor and quite vague, and what little time is spent on them is single discrete random variables. Also the mathematical shortcuts are a nuisance since the non-standard notation being used, I found myself going back and wonder what capital Gamma and Phi were defined as.

There are millions of (easy) examples in this book, and as a graduate student this book had little to offer me except some frustration. I gave it 3 stars since I think that when I was in high school, the mathematical notation would have intimidated me, but it does have some useful examples. (I most likely would have given it 1 star back then)

If you are looking for a better book (Schaums) than this, try
Schaum's Outline of Probability, Random Variables, and Random Processes. This book covers everything up to multiple R.V's, and random processes, moment gen functions etc etc.

This book is just too basic and too complicated at the same time, but does have some value.

Although these books are usually used as a supplement to a textbook you are using for class, this book could work on its own. As long as you have some algebra under your belt, you should have no problem following this.

If you are looking to see what areas this covers, the chapters talk about set theory, techniques of counting, a probability introduction, conditional probability and independence, random variables, distributions (binomial, normal, and Poisson), and Markov chains. There are plenty of definitions, explanations, charts, and tables to help you remember and understand all the appropriate information. This is a very handy reference.

As with other books in the series, this book walks you through a few problems and then gives you some to solve. I like this book in that it gives you the answers so that you can check your understanding. Although it does walk you through the ones you did, you do have the final answer.

I would recommend this book.

This book covers the elementary concepts of probablity commensurate with a first semester calculus-based course in probability. It makes an excellent reference manual for mathematicians and the quantitatively inclined. It could easily be used as a primary source on the topic becuase it is very reader friendly. Its coverage of discrete functions is especially good.

Pitched to a weakish high school math background. Scant treatment of continuous random variables is one of several reasons this fails to achieve the comprehensiveness of other schaum's outlines. There may be courses where this is a good study aid (e.g. probability for poets), but it's a poor reference to basic probability for someone with a stronger math background.

Like other schaum's it is riddled with typographical errors and there is no errata. Eg. Appearing twice:

Correlation(X,Y) = Cov(X,Y) / E(X)E(Y).

Even at their worst, I still find the schaum's guides (this one included) better than a typical textbook with the same scope. This one, however, the problem is scope.

I found this book a simple, concise, and fairly easy introduction to probability theory. Most of the text doesn't require knowledge of calculus or linear algebra, but the text can serve to motivate studying of calculus and linear algebra as it does have some parts and problems which need calculus. The inclusion of a separate chapter, for review or to learn some basics, on set theory also makes this text as it helps to show how set theory gets applied. The classical birthday problem comes as an interesting way to show how probability theory can help us compute probabilities we can't directly count, and how probability can lead to ideas that expand our thinking. The last chapter on Markov chains helps motivate knowledge of linear algebra and also might help one analyze board games such as Chutes and Ladders. The authors graph-theoretic diagrams can also help to motivate knwoledge of, and the relevance of graph theory, and how it has relations to linear and vector algebra.

The difficulty of the solved problems varies from "plug-and-chug" problems to proofs that require a decent dose of thinking, "untangling" of definitions, and drawing out of consequences. In my opinion, this makes the book neither too easy, nor too hard, and thus helps to facilitate enjoyment of the problems and insight. Since there exist many solved problems, one can fairly easily figure out where those errors occur. Even if you know lots of calculus I would still recommend this over Spiegel's Schaum for learning probability theory, as this book includes its chapter on Markov chains.

The reason for this review, is to warn the potential buyer that there exists a large number of typographical errors throughout the text. The following are a few errors within the first chapter:

On page 5, Fig 1-3 (a) is a Venn diagram of the symmetric difference of sets A and B, while the Venn diagram is being described as the union of A and B.
On page 6, the symmetric difference is correctly described, but is improperly defined by the first given definition which is (A union B) \ (A \ B). The proper definition is (A union B) \ (A intersect B).
On page 18, problem 1.19 has an error that would be difficult for someone immature in mathematics to notice. He uses the distributive law while incorrectly replaces an intersection with a union on the second and third line; then correcting it on the fourth.
On page 18, problem 1.20 (c), he has a ')' when a '(' is required. This typo is more obvious than the previous typo.

If you wish to avoid typographical errors such as the selected few described above, possibly the first edition has less. You can view the last two mentioned errors on Google Books in the preview.

Ignoring the typographical errors throughout the book, the book is well done and very complete. There are many problems to work through to provide the required practice. As the preface mentions, the 'main prerequisite' is high school algebra. If the typographical errors did not exist, I would rate the book 5 stars; the book does not deviate from its intended audience and executes its purpose well.

Like other books in their math series, it is an excellent workbook or refresher course, but cannot be used as a primary textbook. Good for:
**supplementary exercises if you are currently taking a probability course
**you just finished a course, but need more practice
**you took a course, oh so many years ago, but need to brush up
**you have a real calculation you have to do (e.g. you have polling data, and want know if marital status and voting in a presidential election are independent)

It has these chapters:
**set theory (venn diagrams)
**techniques of counting (notation, diagrams, binomials)
**introduction to probability (sample spaces, axioms)
**conditional probability and independence
**random variables (making calculations)
**binomial and normal distributions
**markov processes (markov chains and matrix calculations)
**descriptive statistics (mean, variance, standard deviation)
**chi-square distribution (calculating goodness of fit)

This happy workbook has lots of worked out examples to show you how it is done, and lots of supplementary problems with answers so you can practice on your own. Since the chapters are only weakly dependent on each other, you can skip around and do not have to go through them in order.

I was out of high school for a few years, before attending college. I knew I had forgetten all of the math, so I purchased a series of Schaum Outline's to refresh my memory. My goal was to do good enough on the entrance exam, to have me placed near Calculus - where I needed to be for Engineering courses. Let's just say, that this was a COMPLETE waste of time.

I have at least four Schaum Outline books, and all four did NOTHING for me. It's not like I'm bad at math. I went on to do pretty well in my higher level college math courses, and math became my strength. These books just aren't very clear.

If you are buying these books to study or to self teach yourself, you're wasting your time.

If this is to study, you need to see a tutor at your high school/college and get assistance. Most likely, you just need to do the homework assignments in the textbook more often - AT LEAST 1 hour a day, each assignment, until the exam. There are some FREE online resources that helped me during college too.

If this is to "teach" yourself, you really should consider buying a textbook from a college campus, or any online website. These just won't do you any good.