Customer Reviews

Teach Yourself Trigonometry

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

 

 

This book is very well written and a lot of thought was given by the authors as to the presentation of the material and how much background to assume the reader has. I would give the book five stars based on the writing. However, the writers were not well served by the editor, as there are many typos, maybe as many as one every other page. It appears that the proof reading was done by someone without a math background, as many of the errors are obvious, such as an equal sign being omitted, turning an equality into a product. Or the length of the sides of a right triangle being given so that the hypotenuse is not the longest side. Sometimes the answers to questions are messed up, which is very frustrating. Hopefully when the book is republished, it will be given the care it deserves.

I teach myself a lot from books. Some books provide little, some a lot. With this book you walk away with a usable knowledge of trigonometry AND invaluable knowledge of how your calculator performs mathematical operations.
I've tok trig in high school, but the subject wasn't presented in such an organized and methodical approach. The overview in Chapter 1 provided insights that eluded me in high school. Chapter 2 provided detailed knowledge of my pocket computer and knowledge of it's use to solve trig problems that I never realized before. The examples and solutions provide feedback that the lessons were learned and owned. The subsequent chapters methodically build consistent, solid, usable knowledge. Mr. Abbot continually enables you to compare table-based calculations with your calculator calculations, building your confidence in your ability to do both. IF you've wrestled with other approaches to learning trig, this is THE book to get you through it.
I have read Mr. Abbott's Calculus book and find his approach conducive to my learning.

The book would ahve been good except before you even get into the material very good there are problems with wrong answers or very confusing explantions. If this much is wrong at the beginning what about later in the book when you get into the stuff you don't know.