The best thing about this book is it's cover


You'll Love It or Hate It.   August 4, 1999
 1 out of 1 found this review helpful

In my experience with this text, students either love it or hate it. They hate it because it does not offer a brief overview of the topics, like many more popular calculus text books. Instead "Calculus: Single Variable" requires that a student throughly read many examples as it explains rules and laws along the way. Those who love the text do so because the examples offer a firmer understanding of the concepts at hand, instead of just covering enough material to answer the questions at the end of each section. Although this is a very good text book, it definitely requires patience on behalf of the reader, and may not be the book for students who just want to slide by.


Bad text to learn from, and a bad text for reference!   July 19, 1999
 1 out of 1 found this review helpful

I used this text in high school for calculus AB/BC. This text is not worth half the price it sells at. The text suffers many major drawbacks. First of all, there are too few exercises; important for proper digestion of basic concepts. Also, many important topics are left out or covered with too much haste. Third, the text breaks too far from the traditional. The theory is completely ignored, and the numerical-graphical-theorem style is overused.

My instructor had to use supplements almost every week to cover the material required for a two semester calculus class. As for the problems, they are mere computational problems. Yes, they are difficult sometimes, but they do not involve any rigorous mathematical theory. The ability to solve these problems is nothing to brag about.

After this class I completed cal3, diff equs, lin alg, abstract alg, etc... I completed the undergraduate requirements for a math major at the university I decided to attend for the next year (I just graduated from high school, I completed these classes through a college release program that my high school was offering). This is the last text I would choose for a calculus class, ever.

I recommend Thomas/Finney, calculus 9th edition. That is the text I used for reference. In fact, can you guess what text is being used at HARVARD this summer for calculus 2 and 3? The text being used is Thomas/Finney, calculus 9th edition. If the university which published the text is not using it to teach their own students, why is everyone else.

In fairness, I admit that I have heard that the second edition offers many more exercises, and also includes some previously omitted topics.

In any case, I strongly suggest a traditional, more rigorous text such as Thomas/Finney for a true challenge, and a fulfilling learning experience.


This book is a stinker!   April 27, 1999
 1 out of 1 found this review helpful

Had to suffer through this book for undergraduate science background requirement. Also used the multivariable book by same authors for Calc2 requirement. Full of extremely poor explanations, expects you to jump from simple examples to complex problems. This would be fine if I was a Harvard math wiz like Deborah Hughes-Hallett. However, few of us are, so how about some better examples and explanations that a normal human being can follow. Also, try examples without skipping so many steps.


It is difficult to follow   April 16, 1999
 1 out of 1 found this review helpful

The book very good problems to work on throughout the book. But, big but it has very poor explaination that asuume that you do have some previous knowledge of the subject. The examples they do in the book are often hard to follow because many steps are skipped in the solving equations