Precalculus Resources

Here are a few resources to help you strengthen your precalculus skills. If you find any other useful web sites or books, let me know; I'm always happy to add to the list.

Schaum's outline of theory and problems of precalculus
This is an electronic resource of our library, which means that if you are on any campus computer, you can click on the text to the right of "internet link" in the catalog entry and read the entire book. (If you click on the title above, it will take you to the catalog entry.)

The outline contains both completely worked exercises and exercises with only the final answer printed. Unfortunately, the answers are printed right next to the questions, which makes them harder to use for effective practice. I would recommend copying down just the exercises, putting the outline aside, and working the exercises without seeing the answer before checking your work.

Stewart Calculus Algebra Review
The web site for our calculus textbook has a worksheet with algebra review on it. It is much less comprehensive than Schaum's Outline, but it has a nice collection of practice problems for you to work on.

Review from Calculus with Analytic Geometry by Larson, Hostetler, and Edwards
Real Numbers and the Real Line, Order and Inequalities, Absolute Value and Distance
The Cartesian Plane, The Distance and Midpoint Formulas, Equations of Circles
Trigonometry
Here is an appendix on precalculus from a different calculus textbook. The review here is broader than the Stewart Algebra Review but much more compact than Schaum's Outline. The first and third links above contain the material most critical for this class, and again, there are exercises for practice, though no solutions are given.


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