Intermediate Algebra

Reviewed by Sara Patrick, Associate Professor, Goshen College on 6/23/22

Comprehensiveness rating: 5 see less

The book is very comprehensive and thorough. At almost 900 pages, it may be too lengthy.

Content Accuracy rating: 5

I did not notice any major accuracy concerns.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 5

There was a good mixture of current data with older data that focused on showing students the relevance of the mathematical concept.

Clarity rating: 4

Some definitions seemed unclear.

Consistency rating: 5

There was consistency in the book and a lot of scaffolding and review to make it easy for students to refresh their memories on concepts learned previously.

Modularity rating: 4

The formatting made the book difficult to read. If that was fixed, I think the text would be easy to read.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 4

The order of some of the topics seemed strange to me. For example, introducing function notation and the idea of input and output several chapters into the book would not be my preferred order of topics. Also, discussing slope and intercepts after linear equations would frustrate my students since they have all had linear equations in previous high school level classes.

Interface rating: 2

Throughout the text there are multiple formatting issues with important text like equations and tables which would make it difficult for students to use. In general the margins and indentations feel off reading it in PDF form.
Also, I like that the text has a lot of check point questions, but the answers are too close to the question. There would be no way for a student to read the question without already seeing the answer.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

I did not notice any.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

It seemed appropriate for a math textbook.

Comments

This book has a clear focus on applications and showing students the usefulness of the topics discussed. Yet it also scaffolds students from the basics to the more complicated topics.