Thomas' Calculus (11th Edition)

Rating:
Summary: Volere è potere
Review: Essendo italiano avevo dei timori riguardo all'ostacolo che la lingua avrebbe potuto rappresentare, invece mi sto trovando veramente bene.
Non sono d'accordo con la critica di avere degli esercizi troppo difficili a confronto degli esempi, trovo invece che questi ultimi svolgano esattamente il loro compito: far capire meglio un metodo, che poi dovrà essere fatto proprio per poter svolgere l'homework.

Rating:
Summary: Miserable Examples
Review: I am taking calculus in college and when I sit down to do the problems assigned for homework I have an enormous amount of difficulty following the steos that the books uses for their examples. The book always uses perfect examples, things like the indefinete integral of 3x^2 and provides far more difficult problems in their homework sections. Although this seems trivial it becomes a much more substantial problem when it comes to 'u' substition and the problems that can arise from during it and the practice needed to master such things. Talking to my fellow classmates this is a very common complaint that the examples that the books give are far too simple. If it were not for a calculus professor or fellow classmates who have taken the class who can help me I would not be able to understand calculus.

Rating:
Summary: You, too, can learn Calculus!
Review: This was my second attempt to learn Calculus - I failed so miserably the first time, I stopped trying and waited 12 years. This book is complex, but combined with lecture, it is learnable. As with all textbooks, when it comes to the exercises vs. the examples, you're left wondering how they could come up with that!? So, I had to supplement this text with the Pre-calc and Calc Schaum's Outlines (totally separate learning material) - basically for more detailed/solved problems. It was not available when I bought this text, but I would certainly buy the student solutions manual with it...the university I attend follows this book from Calc 1 to Calc 3, so it's really nice in the respect that I don't have to buy another book.