Calculus Single Variable 5th Edition (with CD-ROM) Description:

Calculus Single Variable 5th Edition (with CD-ROM) review:
1 stars (Crap) - I have used this book for 2 semesters and all i have to say is that it sucks. the author skips steps and does a bad job of explaining nearly 75 percent of the book. i personally believe that he should know better, because alot of people dont have a good background in math, including myself, therefore alot of clear explanation is needed. this means that skipping steps and explaining concepts breifly doesnt cut it. therefore anyone who buys this book, should make sure he/she has many ways in tackling calculus, instead of just using the book, which is a waste even if its a penny. this means get the solution manual, pair up with someone, and etc.


4 stars (For what its worth, this is a good Calculus textbook) - This book covers the first twelve chapters of the full edition of Calculus by Stewart. I would actually recommend buying that book instead of this one if you are planning on taking up to Calc. 3 because they are similar in price but the full version includes Calc 1, 2, and 3 material.



Anyway, I used this text for both Calculus 1 and 2 in college. The first six chapters cover the course material for Calculus 1: Introductory Analytical Geometry, Limits, Derivatives, Applications of Derivatives, Integrals, and Applications of Intergrals. Chapters 7-12 covers course material normal for Calculus 2: Inverse functions/Derivatives and integrals of exponential and logarithmic functions, Techniques of Integrations, Applications of Integration to Physics/Engineering, Differiential Equations (which we didn't cover), Parametric Equations/Polar Coordinates, and Series. For some reason chapter seven includes different verisons of certain sections but they are basically the same anyway.



Unlike other reviewers, I think that this book was very helpful. It is possible to learn the material if you put a lot of effort into it, which you need to do if you really want to learn Calculus.



I can see why reviewers would find this book difficult to use though. Truthfully, I found the Calc 1 material much more difficult than the Calc 2 material, probably because more of the calc 1 material is based on theory. The section about graphing fuctions using derivatives is especially difficult. It is extremely difficult to take the derivatives of some of the functions the book gives you, let alone find the critical points, etc. Also, some of the maximinization problems are virtually impossible to solve and a number of the related rate problems are very tricky. Finally, I think that I can truthfully say that I rarely solved integrals correctly by the long way (using summations).



Some people think that Calc 2 is the hardest math subject in the world, but I found the calc 2 material much easier than the calc 1 material. The calc 2 chapters deal more with just solving problems particularly limits, integrals, and series, and the "proofs" for equations are just given on the side or in the appendex. You should already know the basics, so there is nothing really tricky here (except maybe integration by partial fractions) and if you put the effort into working problems, you will probably do ok. Calc 2 is all about 1) Learning how to solve problems by recognizing trends and 2) Commiting some formulas and equalities to memory in order to solve problems and learn about applications of math. As far as I can see, Stewart's problems are as good as any to learn Calc 2.



If you plan on studying Calculus in college, I would suggest first buying the book "Calculus the Easy Way" to look over first. It is pretty good; it covers all Calc 1 material and a good chunk of Calc 2 material. I would also suggest buying the solutions manuel to Stewart's text because it is helpful to see how the problems are worked out. My advice is to just put a lot of time into Calculus (no matter what book you use) and you should do ok. Its just math.
1 stars (You can see my previous reviews of this low quality textbook) - I wrote many reviews about this author and his bad calculus textbooks. 1st edition, 2nd edition, 3rd edition...so what? Despite having a CD-ROM, the book still is the same which is lack of complete and explicit examples, not user friendly, skips steps in the problems presented as examples, lack of color, a poorly written student solutions manual and very condenscending in its language to the reader.



This basically is a very bad textbook. There are much better calculus textbooks from other fine authors and publishers



Again take it from a student who is now in a professional school. Yes, I'm a very intelligent student in a competitive health field program and I'm not lying. I will say this as a student to all math teachers who might have heard this is a good calculus textbook. Don't let those testimonials about "how good this book is" fool you. This is truely not a good calculus book and it frustrates students more then ever. To all math teachers, if you want the student to lose respect for you as a professional math teacher or professor, then go ahead and buy this book for the students to learn from. If you want your students to respect you as a good math teacher or professor, I suggest you stay clear away from this book and find other calculus textbooks from other publishers and authors to teach your students from.