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Rating: 
Summary: discovery method
Review: As a precalc tutor, I found I could read this book fairly well and follow the steps. However, the average (very bright) student has trouble learning the material from this book. Often crucial steps are left out so a student has a hard time doing the same problem themselves. Also the book tends to present only part of the topic and leave much of the real learning to doing the problems. The later problems in each section and many in the chapter review actually are where the real material is covered and students have no idea how to do them because it is not covered in the text. It seems to use the discovery method for teaching. Let the student figure it out, if he can. The treatment of trigonometry is particularly backwards. At the end of the section on oblique triangles, the students are asked to explain the various types of triangles and how to solve them (AAA, SAS, SSA, etc). Why in the world does the book not just teach this in the first place? I much prefer the Schaum guides to this textbook. I do, however, like the application examples and application problems that are used - give math a real world feel. Many of them are rather hard to do, though, because the book doesn't explain how to do them.
Rating:
Summary: Some poor examples and explaining
Review: The book is supposed to be for beginners in PreCalculus, however, many of their examples assume that you have some calculus knowledge. Examples fail to explain the basic steps needed to achieve their results. Book could be good when used by a good teacher, but I recommend self tought students stay away from it, unless, of course, you already know calculus.
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