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(More customer reviews)Dear Average Reader,
Math is my best subject, but it might as well be my worst because this is absolutely the worst text book I've ever seen. If I could meet the authors, Mr. and Mrs. Yoshiwara, I would ask them why they believe the best way for a student to learn college algebra is by providing him with an 8.5-by-10.5-inch hardcover text at 2 inches thick containing almost 1000 pages and a CD ROM, an 8.5-by-11-inch softcover "work book" an inch thich with 350 pages, and an 10-by-8-inch softcover "solution manual" another inch thick with 425 pages.
I deduce from these books that college algebra must be the most complicated thing to learn in the history of mankind. In fact, I actually shudder before these books. The reason I shudder is not because I believe algebra must be this difficult, but because I can't think of a worse undertaking than what I'll witness inside these pages.
Forget the $115 + $45 + sales tax price (as of Fall 2006). First, no person in a college program could possibly have enough time in his semester to completely read these books. I seriously doubt anyone would ever attempt, or could be able, to read these books in his entire life. This assessment comes from just the threat of the sheer size of so many pages, and a CD ROM.
Second, the book is merely acceptable at best. For instance, the first question of the first excercise asks how many weeks are between week 5 and week 9? Five, of course. I'll count them: week 5, week 6, week 7, week 8, and week 9. My math teacher insisted I was wrong, but that's not my point: why would anyone publish a textbook so reckless that the answer of its questions must be assumed in definition?
Let me explain. I suggest to my friend we could go get some lunch together. He says he didn't bring much money. So, I take the change out of my pocket and hold it in my hand. Then, I instruct my friend to do the same. I count my money, and he counts his. We add them together and we get our answer. We have just 95 cents BETWEEN the two of us.
Here's another one. There are five people sitting between me and that actor from television. I wasn't counting him, nor me. Following this interpretation means there are three weeks between weeks 5 and 9. That is because weeks 6, 7, and 8 are between weeks 5 and 9: three weeks. Logically, one should not assume an interpretation without facts.
Here's a question similar to one from the book which my class studied. I go to the grocery store for cola. A 2-liter of cola costs $1.70. A 3-liter of cola costs $2.25. Therefore, the 2-liter is 85 cents per liter, and the 3-liter is 75 cents per liter. Because the price of the 3-liter is a better bargain, I go to the cashier. I pay 75 cents and leave. Since it's impossible for anyone to buy one liter from a 3-liter, I know this math doesn't account for the view of who's doing the shopping.
Here's a math problem not in the Yoshiwara text. A doctor once asked the mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell a question. He asked, "Where does it hurt?" Russell says, "In my mind." This book will be doing that, too.
Here's a math question from the book. What is the cost of 10 feet of fabric at $5.79 per yard? It's an easy question to answer: $19.30. But, this same question in the book, Excercise A.1, number 5, reads exactly like this:
Question 5. Dress fabric is sold (from bolts with a standard width) for $5.79 per yard.
a. Write an expression for the nubmer of yards of fabric in terms of the number of feet of the fabric. (There are 3 feet in a yard.)
b. Write an expression for the cost of the fabric in terms of the number of feet.
c. Find the cost of 10 feet of fabric.
Let me give you MY VERSION of this question a second time.
Question 5. "What is the cost of 10 feet of fabric at $5.79 per yard?"
Notice the simplicity of my version of their question?
First, what does it want to know when it wants something "in terms" of something else? What is this? What are terms? Every math problem will result in writing a term. Factually, it's impossible to do any math class homework without writing a term. This wording has no logic.
Second, why does the book have to tell me to "write an expression?" I always write expressions for all math homework. I cannot solve the problem without forming an expression. Does it ask me to write the expression I form? Well, my college professor told me to do that anyway. He called it, "Homework." All math teachers want students to write the expression they think. How else do students perform homework: writing it really is the only way! This book is full of trite statements!
Third, all the questions in the book ask questions with the same confusion I mention. They have traded in the normal style of algebra text book homework where the question is posed as a question, and NOT posed as an instruction, telling me what to do. In the Yoshiwara book, all questions are formed as instructions; meaning, it has no questions in the book. Therefore, the main objective of the Yoshwara text is to force conformity upon students. The famous MENSA International, the intellectual exchange with IQ tests, forms questions with question marks ending their sentences. Their logic quizzes do not expect members to follow statements of instruction. Therefore, I can extrapolate: the Yoshiwara text uses no proper test of logic, nor does it use any logic in its test design.
I told a friend of mine I thought the Yoshiwara algebra text was excessive. He said, your teacher would know more than you about the qualifications of the textbook for his class. The statement is correct, but it unfortunately only accounts for one person's beliefs, and is inconsiderate to the students'. I scored highest in my last two math classes, but I know I don't know nothing, so I gently reminded him, although my teacher is a professional instructor, that I am a professional student who has to read the text. My friend suggested I study from an alternate algebra text, but I told him that action doesn't make much sense since I will have to complete problems from the Yoshiwara text for my instructor anyway. To form a pun, I figure I don't need more problems.
Math has always been my best subject, to which I have always done well. I had a higher grade score in my last two algebra courses than anyone else in my classes. But, since I have to study from Yoshiwaras' book, I'm thinking of suicide.
The Yoshiwara text is only in line with that new logic that says people are using their vision to learn, more than reading books to learn. My English teacher told me about that new logic. It's like being on crack, or watching MTV. At least, the book tries to adapt to what my English teacher calls the mind of an MTV generation. If this book follows that logic, it's because there's very little simplicity. It's a major undertaking. It's a barrage of math principle with a prerequisite of a master's degree. It was designed by math professors with total interest in math and a blatant disregard to life and logic. They didn't make it to learn math from it; they made it to look like it's the most complete text on algebra that ever existed, only in order to make its existence necessary, for no sane person would read it.
Judging from the text questions I read and the quantity of text, I bet the authors want to teach students to "pump out" math answers without having to think.
No one should ever be forced to study a math text larger than a New York City phone book.
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