by David Cohen
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Product Description
David Cohen's PRECALCULUS, WITH UNIT-CIRCLE TRIGONOMETRY, Fourth Edition, focuses on teaching mathematics, using a graphical perspective throughout to provide a visual understanding of college algebra and trigonometry. The author is known for his clear writing style and the numerous quality exercises and applications he includes in his respected texts. In this new edition, graphs, visualization of data, and functions are now introduced much earlier and receive greater emphasis. Many sections now contain more examples and exercises involving applications and real-life data. While this edition takes the existence of the graphing calculator for granted, the material is arranged so that one can teach the course with as much or as little graphing utility work as he/she wishes.
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
 Book explains, but does not teach too well., 2007-06-20
If this is a textbook... you don't have much of a choice: get it, or drop the class.
Other than that, the textbook is OK. Not great, since it does not explain to well. Basically, it gives you a forumla, spends about 1/4th of a page using that forumla once, and then moves on. At the end of each section, there are about 100 questions, at the end of the chapter there are another 100 questions. The concepts in here are not too easy, so you probably need to actually learn it using the book (or teachers lecture). However, the book itself does not help much. Basically, it's just a section with 5 concepts (more or less), and each one has one example. That is the only thing which teaches you. The rest is for you to figure out by doing examples.
If you're a very fast and comprehensive learner, it may be good for you, as it expects you to learn on the first try, and do examples to complete your learning. Otherwise, you will need to spend more time to understand the concepts, or pay good attention to the teacher/professor.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Excellent - particularly for the interested learner, 2007-04-27
After reading other reviews on this book here on Amazon, I chose it for my independent study of precalc. I don't regret the choice.
I find it particularly well-suited for my learning preferences. Accordingly, this will be a text you will love if:
-you like learning systematically; that is, starting from simple concepts and rapidly building upon them
-you take the time to work many of the problems; the problems are expertly written and do wonders at isolating specific concepts and allowing your mind to be aware of them and master them.
-you enjoy solving problems of a mathematical and logical nature
-you have an interest in the subject that may be slightly broader than simply gaining mastery.
On the last item, the author does an excellent job of weaving tidbits of the miscellaneous and sundry of mathematics and using them to keep the mind interested while also teaching a lesson. Often these concepts are treated within an exercise. There is a good balance between including this extra information and sticking to the core subject. The extra information is never off-topic and keeps the material from becoming too dry while not being annoyingly inserted for the primary purpose of filling space. I am not a great fan of lengthy and marginally useful vignettes in textbooks.
If this is what you're looking for in a precalc textbook, this is the book for you.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Excellent Text, all around, 2006-01-19
I learned pre-calculus from this textbook, and now I've been with a youth math program that uses the book for 3 years. This pre-calc book is excellent and is the first book that was of actual use to myself when learning new material.
The examples in the text are clear and helpful, which makes a world of difference with the material. The problems are also well-designed and there are several different types of problems in this book.
Although the price is high and the book is fairly heavy, it is worth it. If you are taking a pre-calc class and this is the required book, rejoice. If you are taking a pre-calc class and it is not and you have problems with pre-calc material, consider getting a 3rd edition of this book (3rd, not 4th, edition -- save on money).
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
excellent text, 2005-02-15
While I have not taught from this book and have not gone through the entire text, from what I've seen this is an excellent text.
From the preface: "[E]xamples are consistently used to introduce, to explain and to motivate concepts...all of the initial exercise for each section are carefully correlated with the worked examples in that section." Based on my observations, this is true. Exercises following most sections are grouped into three categories: the first consist of these relatively routine problems closely correlated with the examples in the text of the section, and two more categories, each successively more difficult. There are many nice exercises that guide the student through a discovery process. The text is quite thorough and contains many topics not included in the bare-bones precalc text. For example, iteration of (the composition of) functions is presented in the section on composition. But the topic follows, with clear demarcation, that of basics of composition and hence can be omitted cleanly. Elegant results, some of which I had not been familiar with, such as Brahmagupta's theorem, are developed in some exercises. In the section on exponential growth and decay, the logistic growth model is developed in the exercises. But the text works fine even when omitting such challenge problems or those problems developing such optional topics.
While the book does have calculator applications exercises, I agree with the author's philosophy, that while "The graphing utility is and invaluable tool for learning mathematics... the mathematics curriculum should drive the technology, not the other way around."
I also use this book as a reference text.
Apparently the author, Prof. Cohen, was the director of the precalculus courses at UCLA. His experience shows in this book.
Update 5/4/2005: One reservation I have about the text is that the graphs are not always accurate. I feel strongly that graphs should always be presented as accurately as possible to reflect the true nature of the curves.
30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
The best math book I've seen--period., 1999-09-03
This is THE math book for those preparing for the calculus or (like me) revisiting the subject. The book is clear, concise, and stands up well to heavy use. Additionally, the book has tons of examples; contains sections A & B for each chapter. The 'A' section is all that is necessary to continue to calculus, but 'B' will enhance learning if you choose to delve deeper. The study guide that accompanies the book is absolutely excellent--an average student like me can go through the whole book without an instructor if aided by the study guide.
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