Customer Reviews

Student Solutions Manual to accompany Boyce Elementary Differential Equations and Boundary Value Problems

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

 

 

I am an engineering student and currently in differential equations. I bought this solutions manual to accompany the text book (which I also strongly don't recommend) and wish I had returned it to the bookstore in time. Unforntuately, I am stuck with it now. This solutions manual does not explain anything thoroughly. Any questions with problems that I have, or anyone else in my class for that matter, are almost always skipped over as if the answer to the question is blatantly obvious. You'll probably have much better luck researching the answers to your questions on the internet or just asking your professor to explain it, because this solutions manual is next to no help at all.

Not only is this book a poor choice to learn from, but it also is not suitable as a reference for Differential Equations. As a student who is used to learning math material primarily by reading the book, I have found this textbook far below average. Each chapter begins with a brief explanation that consists mostly of formal proofs. I don't mind having formal proofs if there is also intuitive explanations, which this book lacks. For the most part, the authors of the book don't seem too eager to actually have the student understand the material. The examples are a little more helpful but usually the authors skip steps or don't even solve the problem the whole way threw almost as if the they want the reader to try to figure EVERYTHING out on his or her own. This, in my opinion, is not the best way to teach this math.

If only there were less stars to give.

This is one of the worst solutions manuals I've ever owned - problems are selected for solution in no discernable pattern (eg: problems 1,2 and 5b are worked in sec6.1) many solutions are only partially completed, and crucial steps have been skipped in many of the problems that /have/ been worked.

It would be more appropriate for Wiley to have marketed this as a 'Student Hints Manual' or perhaps 'Student Badly-Type-Set-Partially-Worked-Randomly-Selected Solutions Manual'.

I wish someone told me that this manual only had a Sampling of solutions for each section. It did not help me much since it seemed that all the problems my professor assigned were the ones that were not in the manual. The book also has a wierd way of explaining things but I was able to struggle through. If I knew what I know now I would not have bought the book for full price but I would have purchased it used for half the price.

This is the absolute worst solutions manual ever written! There are way too many skipped problems. The solutions that actually are given do not help the reader to understand the material at all. Advice: DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY!!!

Solutions are sometimes even more abstruse than the problems and concepts themselves. Someone got lazy writing out these solutions! Plus, more than half the problems are not solved in this book. Not worth $34 in my opinion.

I'm currently taking ordinary diff EQ and I got this thinking why not... This is the worst solutions manual ever. It solves random problems, and sometimes it will solve a problem with a different method then the book has for that particular section. I have only opened this book up 2x, both times the problems I wanted answers to were not there... Have fun.

This manual skips steps that are crucial to understanding the fundamental process of solving the problems. Very much like the examples in the book. The manual also skips the more difficult problems posed in the text. Better off not buying this manual at all. In fact buy a different elementary differential equations book. Even if this text is required for some college course a secondary textbook can be very helpful.

Not a complete set of answers like I thought, But it does have many useful problems worked out.

Not all solutions are included, but most of them are. The solutions are not complete, but they have served as a very useful guide for me so far. I have not come across a problem YET from the textbook that I have not been able to solve with the help of this solutions manual.

I have found a few errors in the solutions, but interpretting their correct meaning has not been a problem, yet.