Finite Mathematics for the Managerial- Life- and Social Sciences (with CD-ROM and 1Pass for iLrn and Description:

Finite Mathematics for the Managerial, Life, and Social Sciences (with CD-ROM and 1Pass for iLrn and vMentor) review:
4 stars (No problem being used as a finite math text) - This book is not nearly as bad as the other reviews indicate. I teach a course in finite mathematics at the college level and I examined it for possible adoption as a textbook. While it is not the best text I have seen, so I will not be using it, the quality is just below that of the book I use. Therefore, I would have no trouble using this book in my class.

The coverage in college courses in finite mathematics is standard and this book adheres to those standards. Topics are introduced via worked examples; there are exercises at the ends of the sections and review questions at the end of the chapters. The writing is clear, and the explanations are thorough. Solutions to the odd numbered exercises and all of the review exercises are included. While I hesitate to strongly recommend this book as a text, there is no delay in saying that it is one of the better options available.


1 stars (Finite Mathematics=Infinite Frustrations) - I would give this thing -10 stars or more if it were an option from the pull-down menu. The text is little more than a workbook; it has little explanation to go along with the problems you will get assigned as homework. I attend a large university so compounding this problem is the level of math this text is for, freshmen. Freshman classes are taught by "lecturers", or graduate students who, while very knowledgeable of their field, have little or no teaching experience so prove to not be able to effectively fill in the numerous blanks this book leaves. Also, these size of these classes tend to be in the hundreds and with the lecturer himself/herself being a student as well, can not devote the time needed to teach this subject because of the strains their own course loads put on them. Also this book claims that it "aims to provide students with the quantitative skills needed for their chosen fields and to lay the foundation for more advanced courses in mathematics."(qtd. by Amazon from Book News, Inc.) My college uses this text for Business Mathematics but having worked before attending college I can not recall some of the examples in the book as being used in my office...ever. As an example the book uses the old "bag full of different colored marbles, probability of pulling out a given color" exercise. There is also the "5 people on a row of 8 seats in a movie theater different combinations" exercise. That might have been just the example the lecturer picked but I saw no real exercises in accounting and such. The book also assumes that there is no software or calculators in existence to figure out compund interest and such other things so one has to painfully struggle through word problems with one example that is supposed to fit the dozens of different problems given in the book. So, if you are a weak math student like me, prepare to ask lots of questions and go to office hours regularly to beg for help when this book has no explanations. All in all this book leaves you scratching your head unless you already know the math concepts in the book(in which case you should not be taking a class that uses this text). Anyone who has a choice of what text to get should avoid this one. Also, if you can take a course with a different text then by all means do so. I would flush this thing if it would fit in the toilet.
1 stars (Worst mathematics text I have ever encountered.) - This was the required text for my Finite Mathematics class. There is absolutely no detailed information. Students have virtually no tools to apply to problem solving. Apparently there is also no student workbook to demonstrate the steps that Tan failed to illustrate in this text. Slow painful torture is preferable to the struggle one faces when trying to make progress through this textbook.