Algebra and Trigonometry (6th Edition)

Book Preface

I’ve written Algebra and Trigonometry, Sixth Edition, to help diverse students, with different backgrounds and future goals, to succeed. The book has three fundamental goals:
1. To help students acquire a solid foundation in algebra and trigonometry, preparing them for other courses such as calculus, business calculus, and finite mathematics.
2. To show students how algebra and trigonometry can model and solve authentic real-world problems.
3. To enable students to develop problem-solving skills, while fostering critical thinking, within an interesting setting.
One major obstacle in the way of achieving these goals is the fact that very few students actually read their textbook. This has been a regular source of frustration for me and for my colleagues in the classroom. Anecdotal evidence gathered over years highlights two basic reasons that students do not take advantage of their textbook:
• “I’ll never use this information.”
• “I can’t follow the explanations.”
I’ve written every page of the Sixth Edition with the intent of eliminating these two objections. The ideas and tools I’ve used to do so are described for the student in
“A Brief Guide to Getting the Most from This Book,” which appears at the front of the book.

What’s New in the Sixth Edition?
• New Applications and Real-World Data. The Sixth Edition contains 63 worked-out examples and exercises based on new data sets, and 36 examples and exercises based on data updated from the Fifth Edition. Many of the new applications involve topics relevant to college students, including student-loan debt (Chapter P, Mid-Chapter Check Point, Exercise 31), grade inflation (Exercise Set 1.2, Exercises 97–98), median earnings, by final degree earned (Exercise Set 1.3, Exercises 3–4), excuses for not meeting deadlines (Chapter 1 Summary, Exercise 36), political orientation of college freshmen (Chapter 2 Summary, Exercise 53), sleep hours of college students (Exercise Set 8.1, Exercise 74), and the number of hours college students study per week, by major (Exercise Set 8.2, Exercises 33–34).
• Brief Reviews. Beginning with Chapter 1, the Brief Review boxes that appear throughout the book summarize mathematical skills, many of which are course prerequisites, that students have learned, but which many students need to review. This feature appears whenever a particular skill is first needed and eliminates the need for you to reteach that skill. For more detail, students are referred to the appropriate section and objective in a previous chapter where the topic is fully developed.
• Achieving Success. The Achieving Success boxes, appearing at the end of many sections in Chapters 1 through 8, offer strategies for persistence and success in college mathematics courses.
• Retaining the Concepts. Beginning with Chapter 2, Section 2.1, each Exercise Set contains three or four review exercises under the header “Retaining the Concepts.” These exercises are intended for students to review previously covered objectives in order to improve
their understanding of the topics and to help maintain their mastery of the material. If students are not certain how to solve a review exercise, they can turn to the section and worked example given in parentheses at the end of each exercise. The Sixth Edition contains 216 new exercises in the “Retaining the Concepts” category.
• New Blitzer Bonus Videos with Assessment. Many of the Blitzer Bonus features throughout the textbook have been turned into animated videos that are built into the MyMathLab course. These videos help students make visual connections to algebra and trigonometry and the world around them. Assignable exercises have been created within the MyMathLab course to assess conceptual understanding and mastery. These videos and exercises can be turned into a media assignment within the Blitzer MyMathLab course.
• Updated Learning Guide. Organized by the textbook’s learning objectives, this updated Learning Guide helps students make the most of their textbook for test preparation. Projects 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.
• Updated Graphing Calculator Screens. All screens have been updated using the TI-84 Plus C.
What Content and Organizational Changes Have Been Made to the Sixth Edition?
• Section P.1 (Algebraic Expressions, Mathematical Models, and Real Numbers) follows an example on the cost of attending college (Example 2) with a new Blitzer Bonus, “Is College Worthwhile?”
• Section P.6 (Rational Expressions) uses the least common denominator to combine rational expressions with different denominators, including expressions having no common factors in their denominators.
• Section 1.1 (Graphing and Graphing Utilities) contains a new example of a graph with more than one x-intercept (Example 5(d)).