Customer Reviews

Trigonometry For Dummies

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I bought this book and two others at the beginning of my college Trig class. This book is the only one that I used. It was the best investment for the class that I could have made. Trigonometry for Dummies provided all the fundamental concepts that were covered in college Trig and explained them so that even a non-math major like myself could understand. I would highly recommend this book for anyone struggling with college Trigonmetry, or if you are looking for a great book to refresh your skills.

I was in a bit of a quandary as to how to rate this book. I bought the book and the companion "Trigonometry Workbook for Dummies" to refresh my trig skills, long rusted after nearly 50 years of little use. Both books are really quite good although the workbook could be more comprehensive. The big problem with the workbook, and to a lesser extent with the "Trigonometry for Dummies" book, is the large number of errors in the book. One works out a very complicated identity problem only to find that the stated problem is different from the problem answered due to typographical errors. I don't think I went seven pages in the workbook without finding an error. Most of the errors were changed minus or plus signs. This made maintaining confidence in the book very difficult.

One would think that a big publisher like Wiley would employ competent proofreaders. I would also expect them to have an errata sheet somewhere on their web page. But, nooo, nothing helpful there at all except a glossary they forgot to put in this book.

Overall, both books were very helpful, with the exception of not having a lot of confidence that the answer to the problem I was trying to solve would be correct.

I have been out of school for 30+ yrs. and wanted to learn trig for graphics programming. Of all the trig books I have looked at, this is by far the best!!. Highly recommended!!

This book is anything but a comprehensive guide. The author fails to go into verbose detail on almost every problem, leaving you guessing how she came to that conclusion. That would be fine if this was an advanced trig book, but it's the DUMMIES guide and as such I'd expect to be taken through every step of every problem. There's plenty of room for this; there are huge margins which could have been used to fill in more detail.

It also completely fails to explain trig identities in a sensible way, which if you're a student struggling with challenging trig identity problems, this book won't be of any help.

After being out of school for quite some time, I needed a book to get me back up to speed on trig. This book is great. Highly recommended.

I took calculus years ago, but I found I'd forgotten about everything about math, even algebra. The book explains trigonometry fairly well, but I found several errors. One problem contained a minus sign, but was worked out with a plus sign in the answers. Another problem had a similar mistake. Still, about every math book has mistakes, and this one does explain things well. Sometimes you have to really think to see how the author got the answer since a few steps were skipped, but that's probably a good mental exercise. I've had fun working through it and have been obsessed with finishing it at times, so I guess it's accomplishing its purpose.

Recently took college-level calculus and forgot most of what I had learned in high school. Bought this along with "Calculus for Dummies" and used both to help me survive the course.

This book is definitely not comprehensive, but I still have to give it five stars for its great plain-english descriptions of some difficult concepts. I wouldn't buy this book as my only source to learn trigonometry, but as an accompaniment to a good class or as an assistant to help with homework, it does a great job.

This book is well written. It is thorough in its presentation of trigonometry.It also reviews the geometry necessary to understand the trig.There is an emphasis on practical applications using trigonometry.
The explanations concerning how various equations are derived is especially helpful. These enable you to understand instead of memorize.
The Trigonometry workbook is an excellent companion book.

18 pages in, and I find an egregious error:

Page 18:
Example: Find the area of a circle if the angle between the two radii forming the sector is 80 degrees and the diameter of the circle is 4.5 inches.

1. Find the area of the circle.
The area of the whole circle is A=''(pi)r² = ''(pi) · (4.5)² =' 3.14 · 20.25 = 63.585, or about 63½ square inches.


Now, either this is poor math (by not converting the diameter into radius), or poor editing (by meaning radius as opposed to diameter). Whichever it is, it doesn't instill a lot of confidence in the book.

Gotta say I hate trig. But this book really helps you out. Some of the people saying it didn't work probably could have done with getting the Algebra II edition as well. It doesn't matter how good the book is if you stink at math.