Schaum's Easy Outline of College Algebra

by Robert E. Moyer and Murray R. Spiegel

Book Overview

Suitable for test preparation, pre-exam review, and handling those last-minute cram situations, this work gives you the essence of algebra the easy way. It also includes: quick study tips; at-a-glance... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0070527091
• ISBN13: 9780070527096
• Release Date: October 1999
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill
• Length: 135 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.4" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

An excellent book fortextbook support

I bought this book to bolster my knowledge of Algebra concepts while taking precalculus courses at my local college. I found it to be very supportive and supplements the textbook that was assigned to my class.

The best of the Schaum's outlines on Algebra

Schaum's has several flavors of its outlines on Algebra in circulation. Of all of them, I would say that this one is the best, not only for college students but for high school algebra students who plan to study mathematics further in both high school and college. It takes you from the very beginning and talks about numbers and number systems, gets into the meat of algebra with solving various types of equations and equations in more than one variable, and finishes up with some linear and matrix algebra. The explanations are very well done, and thus the book acts as a supplemental textbook and reference as well as a compact source of exercises, solved problems, and essential equations. I have examined the section on exponents and logarithms, and I really don't see that the outline's approach is antiquated at all, as some of the other reviewers have claimed. If I had any criticism of the book at all it would be that it needs more "word problems" than it already has. After all, if you get to the point where you can solve equation B for variable X, then a computer can do the rest of the work for you. The work in mathematics as well as engineering is figuring out what equation will yield a solution to the problem at hand.

Great Refresher

I've been away from college for 4 years and did not want to spend a lot of money and time learning the Math I needed to get into Calculus. When I went to the bookstore, what impressed me about this book was the number of solved problems and the additional supplementary(unworked) problems. Also it looked very concise. I got bogged down on some parts because I just didn't get some of the things the author was trying to say, but after I stuck at it and worked through some of the solved problems I never stayed stuck. If you want to get through Algebra fast I do highly recommend this book.

Schaum's College Algebra Outline

Schaum's College Outlines are the best outline/summary/worked problems series that I have every found. Readers, especially students, need to be cautioned, however, that outlines and summaries and worked problems only work usually if you use them right. For example, most students work problems before putting definitions and theorems or equations or theory onto flash cards and learning the latter four first, or they just work problems and forget flash cards for theorems and definitions. Try studying a pile of homework problems as tall as a room before an exam! Multiply this by the number of exams, both in High School (which should be using Schaum's Algebra, by the way) and college, and it spells FAILURE. Problems, even those worked out for you, only are useful AFTER you know exactly what the theorems and definitions say (with one example for each), preferably backwards and forwards and shuffled (as you can only do on flash cards). A card should only have 2 lines or less of ordinary size writing on front and 2 lines on back for rapid shuffling and reading. I'll have more to say about this in other reviews.

Good coverage of College Algebra and then some

I used the college algebra (2nd ed) outline to CLEP (college level exam program) algebra for credit. I also clepped trigonometry using the Schaum Trig outline (2ed). If you studied both outlines really hard it should be adequate preparation for college calculus. The algebra outline probably covers more than what would be covered in a college algebra course; so, you may be able to skip some of the latter chapters depending on your needs. The text also includes a very good table of contents. I have referred back to this text a few times while taking more advaced math classes. It is a very good book/study guide.