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Rating: 
Summary: Ambitious Text for an Ambitious Student!
Review: First, this book is probably the most beautiful Math Book you will ever see. The text explains mathematical concepts with colorful pictures and modern calculator-generated graphs that definitely encourage students to make more use of their graphing calculators. Second, I believe this book bridges (somewhat) the gap between the traditional lecture/proofs format and new trend of interactive CPM (Collage Prep. Math.) Programs--where students "investigate" with one another to figure out mathematical puzzles and concepts. In this sense, this book is very ambitious. It presents both graphical, heuristic arguements as well as rigorous proofs (when helpful). (For more info. on the issue, look for Prof. Wu's article in Berkeley Math Dept. Web Site) Problems and exercises in the text also encourage this "investigation" and Proving process. I believe this to be one of the greatest strengths of the text. There are the classical "warm-ups" (easy repetitive problems), then medium to challenging problems that engage students in heavy and insightful calculations. Following are some review problems...then come the "synthesis" problems where students are pushed to think about some underlying structures in Algebra. For instance, the question of if there is always an irrational number between two rational; or when a n-th root of an rational number is also a rational number, etc. Sounds over-whelming, huh?...over 100 problems for each sections (not chapters)! Each Chapters are packed with information...one Chapter in this book is equivalent to Three Chapters in any other (like Hosteller's, Miller's, or Dolciani's Texts). Only topic left out is Three-Dimensional (R-3) plots--usually mentioned (in brief) in Second year Algebra or Junior Class Math-Analysis. It's not a big problem, however, since it can be stated quickly and easily explained with skills learned from this text. This book is for Honor Students or students who are ambitious in learning mathematics. Not only that, for ambitious teachers who expect the best and want to give the best for his or her students. Personally, I was a bit hesitant about using this text, but in taking the risk I found that students really learned and stayed sharp throughout the course of their studies. Even for those student that weren't too excited about math found this text as a great resource. However, I must stress this point again: This text is very ambitious...and it takes an ambitious student to truly reap from it's richness and also an ambitous--truly courageous teacher to teach from it. In summary this text is excellent, fast-paced, and has lots of great real-life problems. I love this text...but I must admit it's not for everyone. For more slower paced book, I recommend Hosteller's Intermediate Algebra.
Rating:
Summary: Well Done Text
Review: This text is perhaps the best I've used on Algebra and Trigonometry. After taking algebra in high school, obtaining this text for college helped me understand the concepts that I had missed. Bittinger does an extraordinary job of describing the processes and applications of algebra and trigonometry. His use of technology makes the process fun also. So I give this text 5 stars, and recommend it to anyone interested in mathematics.
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