Prealgebra, 4th edition

Addressing individual learning styles, Tom Carson presents targeted learning strategies and a complete study system to guide students to success. Carson’s Study System, presented in the “To the Student” section at the front of the text, adapts to the way each student learns, and targeted learning strategies are presented throughout the book to guide students to success. Tom speaks to students in everyday language and walks them through the concepts, explaining not only how to do the math, but also where the concepts come from and why they work.

• Carson’s unique study system guides students to success:
• The Study System is introduced in the To the Student section in the front of the text, and is reinforced throughout the book. Carson encourages students to keep a class notebook, and presents strategies for taking notes and studying effectively, including a color-coding system. These colors are used consistently throughout the text: red for definitions, blue for procedures and rules, and black for notes and examples.
• A Learning Styles Inventory is presented at the very beginning of the text and in MyMathLab to help students assess their particular learning styles.
• Learning Strategy boxes, at point of use throughout the text, serve as reminders that tactile, visual, and auditory learners all learn in different ways, and offer specific strategies keyed to their individual styles to grasp the concept at hand. In this revision, new learning strategies written by students and recent graduates have been added throughout the text, helping students learn from each other.
• Examples are carefully explained with Tom Carson’s abundant Notes, which clarify ideas in everyday language. For verbal learners, students intimidated by mathematical shorthand, or for students who need extra help, these Notes provide practical advice with the voice of a personal tutor. Each Example has a corresponding Your Turn exercise in the margin for immediate practice and reinforcement, with answers at the bottom of the page.
• An abundance of exercises give students the chance to practice the skills and understand the concepts they need. Section exercises are now grouped by objective, facilitating review. Special exercise types include the following.
• NEW! Warm-up Exercises at the beginning of each section review prior concepts helpful in learning the concepts in the upcoming section.
• NEW! Prep Exercises begin each exercise set to get students thinking about the terminology, rules, and processes corresponding to the section exercises that immediately follow.
• Puzzle Problems are mathematical brainteasers that appear at the end of selected exercise sets to encourage creative and critical thinking. These problems usually do not have a formulaic approach to their solutions.
• Unique Connections boxes improve students’ understanding of how specific procedures and larger ideas are interrelated, helping to demystify the subject of math.
• A five-step problem solving outline is introduced early in the text. The more difficult application problems in the text follow this outline in order to give students a consistent model for solving problems.
• Polynomials are introduced early and intuitively (Chapter 3) so that students become familiar with this crucial topic early and can continually reinforce their understanding throughout later chapters. This material can be covered later, if desired, or not at all.
• Warning boxes alert students to common mistakes and false assumptions that students often make and explain why these are incorrect.
• Of Interest boxes are positioned throughout the text to add some excitement to the mathematical material. Containing trivia or historical notes, Of Interest boxes are designed to enhance the learning process by making concepts fun and interesting.

• Enhanced! End-of-chapter material provides ample opportunity for students to review.
• The Chapter Summary is now interactive, with Review Exercises integrated within the summary to encourage active learning and review.
• Blank fields for each key topic prompt students to complete the corresponding definitions, rules, and procedures.
• A key example illustrates each concept.
• Review exercises immediately follow the summarized material so that the student can apply the skills and concepts for immediate reinforcement.
• A practice test follows each Chapter Summary and Review, with Chapter Test Prep videos now available on YouTube^™ or in MyMathLab.
• A Cumulative Review follows every chapter, beginning with Chapter 2.

• The Carson Study System has been expanded and enhanced:
• Sample pages showing notes, homework, and study materials are now provided to guide students in developing their own math notebook.
• Learning strategies written by students or recent graduates have been added throughout the text, helping students learn from each other.
• Chapter openers have been redesigned, giving a brief topical overview of the chapter. In the Annotated Instructor’s Edition, each chapter opener also includes an instructor's note with teaching suggestions for the chapter.
• Warm-up Exercises at the beginning of each section review previously introduced concepts that will be helpful in learning the concepts in the upcoming section.
• Discussion boxes provide suggestions to instructors for enriching class discussions, and are now only in the Annotated Instructor’s Edition, to reduce distractions for students.
• Exercise sets are now grouped by objective to make it easier for students to connect examples with exercises and facilitate review.
• Prep Exercises begin each exercise set to get students thinking about the terminology, rules, and processes corresponding to the section exercises that immediately follow.
• Readability has been improved for developmental students—lengthy explanations have been reduced and simplified throughout the book, and visuals have been added to “show” rather than “tell.”
• The problem-solving outline is now used only in the more complicated application examples rather than in all application examples to simplify the process for easier problems.
• Enhanced! End-of-chapter material provides ample opportunity for students to review.
• The Chapter Summary is now interactive, with Review Exercises integrated within the summary to encourage active learning and review.
• Blank fields for each key topic prompt students to complete the corresponding definitions, rules, and procedures.
• A key example illustrates each concept.
• Review exercises immediately follow the summarized material so that the student can apply the skills and concepts for immediate reinforcement.
• A practice test follows each Chapter Summary and Review, with Chapter Test Prep videos now available on YouTube^™ or in MyMathLab.
• A Cumulative Review follows every chapter, beginning with Chapter 2.
• More than 650 new exercises have been added, and real-data exercises and examples have been updated with more current data.

New to the Supplements Package:

• MyWorkbook can be packaged with the textbook or with the MyMathLab access kit and includes the following resources for each section of the text:
• Key vocabulary terms, and vocabulary practice problems
• Guided Examples with stepped-out solutions and similar Practice Exercises, keyed to the text by Learning Objective
• References to textbook Examples and Section Lecture Videos for additional help
• Additional Exercises with ample space for students to show their work, keyed to the text by Learning Objective
• Chapter Test Prep Videos allow students to watch instructors work through step-by-step solutions to all the Chapter Test exercises from the textbook. These are available on YouTube^™ (search “CarsonPrealgebra”) or in MyMathLab^®.
• Enhancements to MyMathLab

• Two MyMathLab course options are now available: a standard course and a Ready to Go course.

• Standard MyMathLab courses allow instructors to build their course their way, offering maximum flexibility and complete control over all aspects of assignment creation. 
• The new Ready to Go courses provide students with all the same great MyMathLab features, but make it easier for instructors to get started. Each course includes pre-assigned homework and quizzes to make creating a course even easier.
• Both course options feature the following items:
1. Pre-made (and pre-assigned in the Ready to Go course) section-level homework assignments.
2. Pre-made chapter review quizzes that are pre-assigned in the Ready to Go course and generate personalized homework assignments based on students’ quiz results.
3. A Pre-made(and pre-assigned in the Ready to Go Course) pre- and post- test for every chapter.
4. A pre-assigned learning styles inventory
5. A guided learning path to walk students through the steps of reading their eText, watching section lecture videos, doing their assignments, and finding extra practice.
• The Project Portfolio Workbook, which takes students through the mathematics involved in buying and building a home, is now assignable and interactive in MyMathLab. Keyed to relevant sections of the textbook, this online supplement is designed to be worked throughout the semester, giving students the opportunity to apply the skills as they are learning them in a meaningful context. Students will complete initial skill-based practice problems, before using these skills in a real-world setting, completing project activities such as calculating a mortgage, estimating energy costs, and budgeting for building supplies.
• Increased exercise coverage gives students more of the practice they need to master the material.

Content Changes

• Chapter 1
• In Section 1.1, number lines are taught before inequalities and rounding so that they can be used to help students understand how to determine the greater of two numbers and also how to round a number.
• Expanded notation is now shown with words instead of multiplication. This improves the connection with the place value names.
• Square roots have been eliminated from Chapter 1, which allows it to move along more quickly. They are now introduced in Chapter 2, where it is explained that there are two square roots for every real number—something that could not be conveyed in Chapter 1.
• Because square roots no longer appear in Chapter 1, the order of operations agreement in Section 1.5 is incomplete. Consequently, mnemonic devices are not discussed until Chapter 2, where the order of operations agreement is completed by adding square roots.
• Section 1.5 now covers mean, median, and mode together. All three statistics concepts are revisited throughout the text.
• Chapter 2
• Additive inverse is now taught in Section 2.2, after addition of integers is introduced, so that the definition can be explained more formally as two numbers whose sum is 0. This simplifies the topic and places it closer to Section 2.3, where it is used to write subtractions as equivalent additions. Expressions such as - (- (-10)) are now taught in Section 2.4 as being equivalent to -1(-1(-10)). Students grasp this much better and it makes it easier to teach subtracting polynomials and solving equations in which parentheses follow a minus sign.
• Chapter 3
• Section 3.1 now contains translating word phrases to expressions.
• Combining like terms has been moved from Section 3.3 to Section 3.2. Having an assignment on just combining like terms prior to starting addition and subtraction of polynomials makes teaching those two topics much easier. Also, by placing combining like terms in 3.2, instructors who wish to skip the operations with polynomials can skip from 3.2 directly to Chapter 4.
• Chapter 4
• The principles of equality are now referred to simply as the “addition principle of equality” and the “multiplication principle of equality” instead of the “addition/subtraction principle of equality” and the “multiplication/division principle of equality.” This change has been made throughout the text.
• Chapter 5
• In Section 5.1, simplifying special improper fractions, such as (⁵/₁) or (⁸/₈), appears in one example instead of being taught in separate cases.
• The explanation of how to find the Least Common Multiple has been revised to be more visual.
• In Section 5.8, the related rates type applications involving two objects in motion towards or away from one another have been eliminated. These problems often take more time than available at this level, and the geometry problems in this section adequately expose the student to problems with two unknowns.
• Chapter 6
• Estimating has been added to this chapter.
• Chapter 7
• A more visual approach has been used in explaining how to translate application problems to proportions. This approach helps students see the correct relationships among numerators and denominators.
• When teaching converting units of measurement, this edition uses the term “conversion factor” instead of “conversion ratio” as in previous editions.
• In Section 7.6, related rates application problems involving two objects traveling in the same direction have been eliminated.
• Chapter 8
• Word-for-word translation to an equation and the proportion method are now taught side-by-side in one section, Section 8.2, instead of two sections. Teaching both methods for each example makes class time more efficient and makes it easier to discuss which method is best for the situation.
• Chapter 9
• Congruent triangles have been added to Section 9.1.