Pre-calculus Demystified, Second Edition

I got this book for my daughter whose high school uses an on-line textbook. The textbook is good and very thorough, but it is not that easy to navigate an on line book, and the solutions to all the problems are not provided. The author's writing style makes the material easy to understand. The problems and solutions presented are also easy to follow.

I am determined to finally grasp calc even if it kills me. My local library had this book and I enjoyed it so much that I ended up buying it. There's lots of practice problems, everything is explained clearly, and I never got that dizzy nauseous feeling I used to get when I was struggling with calc in school. I was really, really rusty in math--more so than I realized. OK, I haven't really looked at any math since Jimmy Carter was in office, so I had a lot of proverbial dust to blow off. This book was just what I needed! It started slow and covered the basics first. Everything was well-organized. Although it was tough going in places (some days I had to be happy with an hour yielding only 4 pages of progress), I stuck with it and I'm glad I did. Also worth taking a look: The Humongous Book of Algebra Problems by W. Michael Kelley

This review book is a VERY good guide for learning precalculus. The content and information is fairly easy to understand and process, if read carefully. The one flaw which I noticed were errors in writing, including some false information. It seems that the book was not thoroughly proofread before being published, as some vocabulary and wording are incorrectly stated. I used this book for the CLEP precalculus exam, and it was very good preparation. The one topic which appeared on the CLEP and not covered in this book was absolute value expressions. It is important to keep in mind that prior knowledge of algebra 2/trig topics is required to understand certain parts of the contents of this book. Overall, this is a great book, and would be excellent if there were no writing errors.

I'm using this to study for the clep. It's easy to follow and has a lot of examples I also bought the for dummies pre calculus and I like this much better Because it is more thorough. I have no background knowledge of pre calculus. UPDATE 9/11/2016: I have since taken the CLEP exam and passed! This is the best resource I had while studying. Other great references I used were themathpage.com, khan academy, profrobbob and PatrickJMT youtube videos. I also bought the CLEP precalculus book, which was good for the practice tests and some additional info. My highest math course was college algebra. The CLEP exam is a lot to study for if you are like me and had no knowledge of trig or precalculus level algebra. I'm currently taking calculus, and I refer back to this book often to refresh my memory.

Great book that was exactly what my daughter needed! My high school junior struggled at the beginning of her AP PreCalc and Trig class, and was considering dropping down to a lower math class. Due to the number of honors/AP classes she was taking, she just didn’t think she’d have the extra time to dedicate to learning the principles of precalc. Our district doesn’t necessarily instruct the students in the traditional sense; much of the material is expected to be self-taught at home, and through homework. And somehow, they’re teaching everything online now, with not a single textbook!?! This is frustrating for her, especially with tougher concepts like precalc. She told me not to buy the book, that it wouldn’t help, but at such a low price point, I decided to buy it anyway. About a week after the book arrived, she was stuck on one of the concepts and I handed her the book. Lo and behold, it did help her!! Once we found the answer key in the back of the book, it helped even more 😉 Since then, she has continued to use the book periodically, either to help grasp a concept, or to practice for a test. Overall, I’m very glad I decided to purchase this book for her, as she decided to stay in the AP class and got a high B her first quarter. I highly recommend this book to anyone struggling to understand precalc, or to use as extra practice in mastering the concepts.

As a professional math tutor. I think this is one of the best books for a high schooler to have. I first saw a copy of this book at the research facility I work at. It's concise and great for going through the current Pre-Algebra to College Algebra curriculum. It doesn't cover geometry for anyone wondering, but it does a good job of going into upper level trig concepts and dips its toes into some intro Calculus and Statistics/Probability too. My only issue was with the condition of the book I received. There were visible creases and even 4 pages that just weren't the same size as the rest of the book. The person that made it looked like they tried to hide it by folding it into the book, but that quality control issue isn't the best look for the company.

I am in my 30s and recently went back to school to earn a BSc in computer science. The programming is easy, but as someone who has not used math in a classroom setting for over a decade, I needed help before I tackled the required calculus courses. This book has helped me get back up to speed. The author is clear and presents ideas as simply as possible, without being condescending or dumbing it down too much. There are plenty of practice problems. It is quite thorough. I can't really fault it in any way. If you're willing to put in the effort, you can master the material presented in this book.

I used this book to self-study precalculus on my way back to college for the first time in twenty years. I also had the "Blitzer PreCalculus" textbook as a reference. Both books are excellent--far better than what was available when I was in High School--but new editions of the Blitzer textbook cost ten times more than this book, so at a price point there is no comparison. Everything is covered clearly. If you do all the examples and all the practice problems, I don't see how you could fail to learn what you need to know. Obviously, most of the reviews of this book are positive. A few have said it's not sufficient to prep for CLEP but I don't agree--I've taken the Petersen's CLEP practice test using primarily what was in this book as study material, and though it turned out I didn't need to take that test, I have no doubt I was ready for it. A few have said this book is incomplete, but I'm not sure what is missing--*maybe* a few borderline topics that are debatable whether they need to be covered in a Pre-calc book. All in all, one of the best books I've ever seen on any topic, and cheap compared to many of the alternatives.