Thread: My Plan, before entering college calculus

I will need to boost my math skills for graduate school sadly, with that being said I am determined to learn calculus on my own before I even set foot in the class room.

So far I have bought the following texts to work through before starting my studies in calculus.

Algebra Amazon.com: Algebra Demystified : A Self Teaching Guide (Demystified): Rhonda Huettenmueller: Books
College Algebra Amazon.com: College Algebra Demystified: Rhonda Huettenmueller: Books
Pre Calculus Amazon.com: College Algebra Demystified: Rhonda Huettenmueller: Books
Calculus Amazon.com: College Algebra Demystified: Rhonda Huettenmueller: Books paired up with some college text.

Is a trigonometry book absolutley needed? I figured the pre-cal book would cover much of what I needed to know trig related before I started calculus.

Many thanks

its much easier to learn any field of math when you have a professor to help you...ive never been one to learn from the book. calc1 isnt very difficult, imo. much easier than learning trig. but yeah you need to have a good understanding of trig before tackling calculus.

But it seems to me to be overkill when many of the calculus concepts are learned in pre-cal.

any calculus book is going explain calculus related concepts using a decent amount of trig. i strongly recommend learning sohcahtoa, exact values, and trig identities before goin onto calc.

Ok thanks. Would you happen to know of a self teaching trig book you could recommend?

Hello Cmf0106!
I replied to your other thread earlier. If you are poor in math, then how do you expect to learn trigonometry? It's better that you start improving in math before attempting trigonometry.

I suggest that you stop looking for books, and that you actually start learning the stuff from the books that you bought. Algebra is very easy to grasp if the book lays the material in a clear manner, though it is preferable that you at least get a tutor to help you with the material as this quickens your pace. You said that money is not a limiting factor, so hire someone to help you with this.

I do not intend by starting at trig , I am working through basic algebra right now. I will take it one step at a time as they say, but yes thanks for your suggestions.

i would recommend these books.

"College (or Advanced) Algebra and Trigonometry" By Vance or by Leithold for your basic algebra and trigo..

TC7 (The Calculus 7th Ed.) by Leithold; or
(Transcendental) Calculus by Stewart
Calculus by Anton et al.


They are easy to read and to understand.

Do they include pletty of examples along with solutions for the problems? Also since this is prob. for academic use im hoping that at least all the odd problems at the end of the chapters have solutions as well.

of course.

Awesome Ill do whatever it takes to get a firm grasp on the subject. But come to think of it im not really certain why calculus is required. I am going to to graduate school in either petroleum or mineralogy, both subsects of geology. With that being said I have done some advanced geology courses such as hydrogeology, and most of the calculus based problems are very very basic formulas that have been stream lined over the years and its a simple matter of a few unit conversions and number plug ins. *Sigh I guess calculus couldnt hurt could it?

TC7 (The Calculus 7th Ed.) by Leithold

,

Do they include pletty of examples along with solutions for the problems? Also since this is prob. for academic use im hoping that at least all the odd problems at the end of the chapters have solutions as well.

I bought this book. It is good for Calculus I, II and maybe III. (Also maybe precalculus, but I don't know exactly what is included in precalculus). There are plenty of examples (that is, solved problems and explained. But generally you'll need a calculator that can integrate to answer to many questions), and also many many problems to do. And yes, there is the solution of the odd exercises in the same book (at the end). But I can say a few things I didn't like about this book : The fundamental theorem of calculus. It is (to me at least) completly different from the one I read in wikipedia and the one from a book from Spivak (which is one of the suggested book from my university). Also sometimes the book will say "the demonstration is far too complicated to be in this book" while in fact it isn't so if your course ask you to know the demonstration, you'll need to check out in another book. (The one from Spivak has some demonstrations that are not in the Leithold's one. If I remember well, the demonstration of "A continuous function is Riemann-integrable" is one example of a missing demonstration of Leithold.).
And also... Leithold says that an assymptote of a curve cannot be equal to the curve while in all the books I read I never saw such a restriction. (for more details on this, see this thread : http://www.mathhelpforum.com/math-he...efinition.html).
If money is not a problem at all, then I suggest you to buy maybe 2 books about calculus and follow one in particular. But to be sure about what you're learning, always check out the other book.

sad, Leithold is already so he cannot make another revisions. I hope, disciples of Leithold would.. haha

anyways, i guess, those missing illustrations are not meant to be there because, imo, they should be taught in advanced calculus.

Originally Posted by arbolis

If money is not a problem at all, then I suggest you to buy maybe 2 books about calculus and follow one in particular. But to be sure about what you're learning, always check out the other book.

yeah, consider this suggestion.. Ü