How to Ace Calculus: The Streetwise Guide

This is a book that I used mostly to help teach myself calculus before I had to take the class. The first handful of chapters (about the first 30 pages or so) deal with things like choosing the right teacher, study tips, exam taking, etc. Then, it gets into the meat of the material that you will learn in class. It covers all of the major topics from the first semester of calculus and most of the material in the second semester. Of course, that depends on how your school structures the calculus curriculum, but if it is a standard split where the first semester deals with derivatives and their application, and then introduces integrals, and the second semester focuses on all of the various integration techniques and their applications, then this will get you through that. Some second-semester calc classes also cover an introduction to differential equations, and if your school does that, this book will not cover that material. The book is not what I would call a problems repository. It is more like the explanatory material that comes before the problem sets in the textbooks and provides some examples. The explanation of the theory and how to work problems are better than you would get in a lot of textbooks, but if you would need to get something like one of Schaum's guides if you want something that just has a ton of practice problems. One of the very helpful things the author does is give tips for things to look out for when working with different problem types and point out common mistakes that people make. If you can internalize those concepts quickly and do a lot of practice problems you will learn the material and avoid unnecessary mistakes. So, if you can learn from a book, which is definitely hard for some people, this one is a good resource to help you learn the material. I would read this in conjunction with the textbook to help make sense of what the textbook is trying to explain.

Last fall my son enrolled in Calculus 1 as a college freshman. I thought that, having taken calculus 40 years ago, it might be an interesting time for me to try a refresher -- so we agreed to put our heads together now and then. Since the textbook (Stewart) was none too friendly, we soon started assembling background materials to help us along. We bought several books, including this one; "The Calculus Lifesaver" by Adrian Banner; and "The Humongous Book of Calculus Problems" by Kelley. In addition, we picked up a copy of "The Calculus 1 & 2 Tutor" DVD by Jason Gibson, and checked out several of the many tutorials on YouTube. Now that the semester is over, I can say that "How to Ace Calculus" was the book we consulted most frequently for quick help along the way. Banner's book was more thorough (at 700+ pages, it should be), and it is the one I would recommend to a serious student who is really motivated to master calculus as completely as possible. But "How to Ace Calculus" usually gave us just the right amount of help we needed to get through a given topic. We did note that a few topics covered by my son's class were not in the book, but we could easily deal with these using the other resources we collected. I particularly appreciated the "Just the Facts" tear-out pages at the end of the book summarizing all of the key formulas, etc., in only a dozen pages. As an incoming college freshman, my son also said he enjoyed the book's explanation of how to deal with a class like math at the college level. As for the jokey spin that worked its way into nearly all the sections -- well, a little went a long way, sometimes we'd be rolling our eyes, but in the end it wasn't too distracting. We also made regular use of Gibson's DVD and various YouTube tutorials. At any rate, my son did get an A in Calc 1, and now it's on to Calculus 2. For that, we bought the authors' sequel, "How to Ace the Rest of Calculus." I wish I had resources like this back in the prehistoric era when I took calculus the first time.

Ok, I'm the type of person that likes to hold onto my old math books for future reference because we all tend to forget some mathematical concepts and equations as time goes on. This book is amazing. After having previously buying a disappointing DVD on Calculus, I had to find another source to supplement, and cover the ideas of Calculus. I found this book was extremely easy to reader and covers all concepts that you are likely to run into in your Calculus 1 and 2 classes. And best part is this book is very cheap compare to others out there yet it has concise and humorous explanations. I enjoy this book so much that it almost doesn't feel much like studying when reading it, yet I am better able to understand Calculus after each section. This book is definitely a keeper and maybe I'll even sell back my Calculus 1 and 2 textbooks to get some of my college money back. Good luck in your Calculus adventure.

I laughed at the title before I bought this, but picked it up anyways. I got an A+ (!!!) so in hindsight I think I owe the authors an apology for snickering at the title. Great book!

Fantastic!!!

This book should be far more popular, it adopts a fun and jovial style and teaches lots of shortcuts, hacks, tricks and tips to help you master the subject of Calculus. At the same time it still manages to dive deep into the subject of Calculus and rewards the reader with a sound theoretical underpinning and non-superficial appreciation of the topic. After reading this book, I realized that Calculus was not as daunting as I had previously imagined and even tricky concepts like the fundamental theory of calculus, multiple integrals and chain/product multiples could be mastered easily in minutes rather than hours. The problem with most calculus books is the wade straight into the deep water and scare the new learner, also they are completely unsympathetic towards common mental block and difficulties which virtually every new student encounters, The authors adopt a radically different approach by presenting topics in the easiest way to learn using mnemonics, mental imagery and jokes to help you along the journey and progress quickly. This book will really help you ace calculus,butiIt is quite difficult to find in bookshops, so get your copy from Amazon now1

Es un buen libro para saber cómo se hacen las cosas sin destinar mucho tiempo a entrar en detalles. Es bueno incluso para entender los conceptos detrás de cada técnica, pues no es un libro que solo te enseñe a resolver ejercicios. No es un sustituto de un libro de cálculo que toque en profundidad todos los temas, pero aún y así es un muy buen libro para empezar o para repasar en poco tiempo.

Great book that explains every aspect within perfectly!