When John Hornsby enrolled as an undergraduate at Louisiana State University, he was uncertain whether he wanted to study mathematics education or journalism. His ultimate decision was to become a teacher, and now after more than twenty-five years of teaching at the high school and university levels and fifteen years of writing mathematics textbooks, both of his goals have been realized. His love for both teaching andmathematics is evident in his passion for working with students and fellow teachers as well. His specific professional interests are recreational mathematics, mathematics history, and incorporating graphing calculators into the curriculum. John's personal life is busy, as he devotes time to his family (wife Gwen, and sons Chris, Jack, and Josh). He has been a rabid baseball fan all of his life. John's other hobbies include numismatics (the study of coins) and record collecting. He loves the music of the 1960s and has an extensive collection of the recorded works of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.
I have nothing to add to this review perse. Just noting that trigonometry has been the most challenging class I have ever taken, and I will be thrilled if I escaped it with a passing grade. We concentrated on chapters 8 through 10 for the course, and all of chapter nine kicked my butt up one side of the street and down the other. I have never been very good at remembering formulas, theorems, or the like, but this class made me feel as though my mind was made of swiss cheese. My only book related complaint would be for there to be more, varied, examples.
*************************** Original Review With my final precalculus exam under my belt, I can say that I have finished this textbook...for now. However, I'll be picking it up again in just over a month as we will be using this same text for trigonometry next semester.
Pros - A lot of information, and I do like that there is an example problem for each concept covered in a chapter. I also like that it highlights what I'll need in Calculus as well.
Cons - There are times that the authors make assumptions about prior knowledge and therefore do not always work the examples all the way through. Occasionally steps are skipped that can make following along difficult, especially since our Precal class started with Chapter 5. There are concepts that a student may have either not covered in detail before taking this class or forgot along the way.
I'm giving it a 3 for now. I plan to follow up on this review after my trigonometry class as well.