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So, I'm going to Pre-Calc honors next high school as a freshmen. I want to self-study right now so I won't get bad grades on my marks. Does anyone have a good book recommendation? Any tips for for getting good marks is also helpful.

QuantumPi
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  • Try Stewart’s Precalculus book. May not be the most exciting exposition, but it’s certainly extremely comprehensive and features more than enough practice problems (don’t expect to do all of them, of course) – Chubby Chef Dec 18 '20 at 13:10
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    I like Cohen pretty well. To get good grades, in the long run, commit yourself to understanding rather than memorizing. Learn to derive all the formulas from scratch. Try to figure out yourself how to derive them before looking up how it is done. When you read how a formula is derived, try to imagine how someone might have thought of that. Check that you are able to reproduce the derivations later without looking at the book. Try to see the key idea that makes it easy to derive the formula once you have the idea. Make this part of your lifestyle / mission in life. – littleO Dec 18 '20 at 13:51
  • Could you send me a link of where to find the books? Also, can I see a sample of it? Thank you in advance – QuantumPi Dec 18 '20 at 14:20
  • Does this answer your question? what is the best book for Pre-Calculus? –  Apr 29 '23 at 08:58

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I like the Art of Problem Solving series for self-study:

https://artofproblemsolving.com/store/item/precalculus

If you get the online version, there are embedded videos explaining various topics. It's a different sort of text, that asks you first to wrestle with some questions, then it answers the questions, then it gives you some exercises. The solution manual (and the solutions online) are very thorough.

B. Goddard
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    Agreed, but note that the problems in these books are aimed at training elite contest math competitors. So, many of the problems might seem to be very difficult, and it's important not to get discouraged even if you're unable to solve any of them. Some of these problems might be way, way harder than what you would encounter in an ordinary Precalculus book. (I haven't actually read this book, but that is my impression.) – littleO Dec 18 '20 at 15:23
  • I have a lot of AoPS books, I guess I can study with AoPS Pre-Calc and Stewart's Pre-Calc book. – QuantumPi Dec 19 '20 at 14:04
  • That's probably a good combination. Two very different approaches would give you a good perspective. I don't think Stewart is especially good, but it's as good as any "normal" text out there and lots of schools use it. – B. Goddard Dec 19 '20 at 15:51
  • @B. Goddard then what Pre-Calc book do you recommend other than AoPS Pre-Calc book? – QuantumPi Dec 20 '20 at 19:30
  • I don't like the path that textbook have taken. Always fatter, always more colors, always more non-linear and confusing. So I like old texts. The 2nd or 3rd edition of Fleming and Varberg's College Algebra and Trig is a nice clean text. The later the edition the more it sucks. The same with Heineman and Tarwater Trig. Early editions are lean and clean. They get the material covered without all these god-awful 9-part exercises using "real world" data from some drug trial. – B. Goddard Dec 20 '20 at 19:45