Books > Specialty Stores > Custom Stores > Archive > General > Science: General

	buying more than one thing? add to bookbag(uses Multi-Item Price Optimization™) ...or you can sell this book ...or set a price alert ...or intereact!

College Algebra (Lial/Hornsby/Schneider Series)
Margaret L. Lial, John Hornsby, David I. Schneider
Edition: 9th
Retail Price (not our price): $134.67
ISBN: 0321227573
ISBN-13: 9780321227577
Publication Date: 2004-01-31
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 816


Customer Reviews (supplied by Amazon.com):
Average Customer Rating: 1.5 out of 5

1) Very Thorough Book   [Rating: 4 out of 5]
I am teaching from this book this summer, and I have not had the problems that other reviewers have described. This book is written for people with a pretty good understanding of high school algebra - after all, it is a college algebra book. It is not watered down at all, and the material is presented in some depth. However, I have found that this book does a really good job of warning students about common mistakes. I have found it clear (I can't say that for every algebra book I've used.) and my students have not complained, either. I would use this book again.

2) This book is the pits   [Rating: 1 out of 5]
I am by no means a math wizard. I am, however, able to learn things on my own fairly well. This book makes that nearly impossible though. This book gives very few examples, and the few that they do give rarely give any clues to what needs to be done to solve the equations. It also fails to really teach anything. It's by no means for a student that is going to be going through an online course where they won't be interfacing with an instructor. I would not have enrolled into the course for online schooling if I had know this books was going to be this terrible. I strongly don't recommend this book!!!

3) Sadly disappointed   [Rating: 1 out of 5]
This text is a pathetic excuse for educational material. It gives meager examples and many are not even applicable to the chapter exercises. By far this is the poorest written text I have encountered in three years of college.

4) Now I'm scared!   [Rating: 1 out of 5]
I'm getting ready to take Intermediate Algebra using a text by this author. I will be required to take College Algebra next term and am hoping, after reading your reviews, that this is NOT the book that will be required for the class. Did anyone get value from "math help" websites? Thanks!

5) I think I know why they use this book   [Rating: 1 out of 5]
After reading the previous reviews for this book, I realized one question kept surfacing. Why? Why did my instructor choose this book? A very likely answer is this book could have been chosen based on the margin of profit the school bookstore makes off of it. I don't know this for certain, but I have encountered similiar problems with texts chosen when I was in college. A useless, high-priced text book was often a sign of a greedy college bookstore. I would tend to suspect this when we were required to spend quite a bit for inferior texts--esp. ones that changed editions often (requiring you to buy the 'newest' book). The instructor may have had little to do with the choice. I don't have much to say about this particular book, but when in this type of situation there are a few steps you can take. Attend every class and take good notes. If you notice most of the other students don't understand a particular concept, go to the instructor and ask that the lesson be repeated. Use the book only to work the assigned problems- use your notes for the methods. Hope this helps!