Precalculus, 6th edition

• Engage students with the mathematical world around them.
  • UPDATED! Outstanding applications from diverse fields are the centerpiece of this series, drawing from the author’s unique background in behavioral science. Students stay engaged when they see the context and understand the relevance of math. In this new edition, the author continues to raise the bar with new applications throughout that are relevant to college students, including student-loan debt, grade inflation, political orientation of college freshmen, sleep hours of college students, and the number of hours college students study per week.
  • Chapter Opening and Section-Opening Scenarios begin every chapter and section with a unique application of mathematics in students’ lives outside the classroom.  The often humorous tone of these openers is intended to help fearful and reluctant students overcome their negative perceptions about math. These scenarios are revisited throughout the chapter in examples, discussions, and exercises.
  • Blitzer Bonuses provide historical, interdisciplinary, and otherwise interesting connections to the algebra being studied, showing students that math is an interesting and dynamic discipline. New to this edition, these are brought to life in in a new video series and related assignments. 

• Support students of all majors in their goal to be successful--in this course and beyond.
  • NEW! Achieving Success boxes appear at the end of many sections in Chapters 1 through 5 with strategies for persistence and success in college mathematics courses.
  • NEW! “Retaining the Concepts” section exercises focus on objectives that appeared previously in the text, to ensure students continue to apply and maintain mastery of the material. If students are not certain how to solve one of these, they can refer to the specific section and worked example provided next to each exercise.
  • Learning Objectives, framed in the context of a student question (What am I supposed to learn?), are clearly stated at the beginning of each section. These objectives help students recognise and focus on the section’s most important ideas. The objectives are restated in the margin at their point of use.
  • Voice balloons offer the support and guidance of an instructor’s voice. These translate algebraic ideas into everyday English, clarify problem-solving procedures, present alternative ways of understanding concepts, and connect problem solving to concepts students have already learned.
  • Check Point Examples follow a similar matched problem and offer students the opportunity to test their understanding of the example by working a similar exercise. The answers to the Check Points are provided in the answer section. 
  • Detailed Worked-Out Examples make the purpose of the example clear. Examples are clearly written and provide students with detailed step-by-step solutions. No steps are omitted and each step is thoroughly explained to the right of the mathematics.
  • Great Question! takes the content from each Study Tip and presents it in the context of a student question. Answers to the questions offer suggestions for problem solving, point out common errors to avoid, and provide informal hints and suggestions.
  • Integration of Technology Using Graphic and Numerical Approaches to Problems are side-by-side features in the technology boxes that show how graphing utilities verify and visualise algebraic results. Even for those not using graphing utilities, these displays will help students understand different approaches to problem solving.
  • Discovery boxes, found

About the Book

• Engage students with the mathematical world around them.
• UPDATED! Outstanding applications from diverse fields are the centerpiece of this series, drawing from the author’s unique background in behavioral science. Students stay engaged when they see the context and understand the relevance of math. In this new edition, the author continues to raise the bar with new applications throughout that are relevant to college students, including student-loan debt, grade inflation, political orientation of college freshmen, sleep hours of college students, and the number of hours college students study per week.

• Support students of all majors in their goal to be successful--in this course and beyond.
• Achieving Success boxes appear at the end of many sections in Chapters 1 through 5 with strategies for persistence and success in college mathematics courses.
• “Retaining the Concepts” section exercises focus on objectives that appeared previously in the text, to ensure students continue to apply and maintain mastery of the material. If students are not certain how to solve one of these, they can refer to the specific section and worked example provided next to each exercise.

• Help students to study efficiently and apply their understanding with extensive and varied exercise sets
• Learning Guide. Organized by the textbook's learning objectives, the Learning Guide is available as a print supplement to help students make the most of their textbook for test preparation. Activities are now included to give students an opportunity to discover and reinforce the concepts in an active learning environment and are ideal for group work in class.
• Brief Review boxes summarize the most critical prerequisite mathematical skills students should know in order to master the chapter’s objectives. This feature appears whenever a particular skill is first needed and eliminates the need for reteaching that skill. For more detail, students are referred to the appropriate section and objective in a previous chapter where the topic is fully developed.
• Retaining the Concepts exercises are a chance for students to review previously covered objectives in order to help maintain their mastery of the material and keep skills fresh. Beginning with Chapter 2 each Exercise Set contains three review exercises under the header “Retaining the Concepts.”  These exercises are also available to assign through MyLab™ Math.