» Everyday Math Demystified

Everyday Math Demystified Reviews

Customer Rating:
Summary: Grateful for Stan Gibilisco and the Demystified books
Comment: We have several of Stan Gibilisco's Demystified books in our library. They get checked out often with positive reviews.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: "Everyday" Math, Definitely Not "Basic" Math
Comment: About six months ago I purchased both "Everyday Math Demystified" and "Pre-Algebra Demystified" at the same time. I was just finishing up the tail end of an Associate Degree in business studies, and was thinking about switching things up a bit for a Bachelor's.

When I received both books, I made the decision to dive into the "Everyday Math" book first, thinking it would be the most likely choice for a good mathematic foundation - what a mistake that was!

As soon as I took a look at the first chapter, I knew I was in for some trouble. Right off the bat, the book used explanations that were WAY to advanced and confusing for someone just starting out. After struggling through the first few chapters, I quickly became discouraged and neglected my extracurricular algebraic studies, without even bothering to take a look at the second Demystified book I had purchased.

Months later, for reasons still unknown to me, I was compelled to pick up the "Pre-Algebra Demystified" book and give it a crack. To my extreme delight and surprise, this book was actually helpful! The book used simpler, more straight-forward explanations, and included a little bit of everything; from basic math and ratios, to geometry, basic equations, and graphing - simply stated, this book was everything that the "Everyday Math" book was thought to be but wasn't!

After going through my "Pre-Algebra Demystified" book, I was a satisfied enough customer to go ahead and purchase "Algebra Demystified" since these books seem to be progressive and build on one another. Perhaps after reading the second algebra book, my "Everyday Math" book might start making some sense!

In conclusion, if you are wanting to purchase a study guide for core math skills and build a solid foundation for more advanced mathematics such as trigonometry and linear algebra, "Pre-Algebra Demystified" in my opinion would make a far more superior choice. The lay-out and explanations are excellent, and the little quizzes and exams they throw in there really do help out as well.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Should be "Everyday Math Mystified"
Comment: I haven't studied math in many years, and I wanted to freshen up my skills. I was never a math wiz, but I'm certainly competent at the basics. When you get beyond the basics, my brain starts hurting a bit though. Unfortunately, this book is so poorly written that even the basics made my brain hurt.

First off, contrary to what the title and cover suggest, this book contains almost no information on the basics. Addition, subtraction, multiplication and division are all covered in less then a page and a half. But don't get your hopes up... He doesn't actually tell you how to DO multiplication (for example). He tells you that multiplication is represented by a "x". The actual process of doing multiplication is apparently left as an excercise for the reader.

Ok, no problem. Like I said, I'm pretty good on the basics, I wanted something a bit more advanced anyway. Unfortunately, what information is here is presented so badly that you pretty much need to be a mathmetician to read it (in which case you probably don't need this book). Take the section on primes from p. 12: "Let p be a nonzero natural number. Suppose ab = p, where a and b are natural numbers. Further suppose that either of the following statements are true for all a and b: (a = 1) & (b = p) or (a = p) & (b = 1). Then p is considered a prime number. In other words, a natural number p is prime if and only if it's two natural number factors are 1 and itself". That's demystifying? Primes are a pretty simple topic, but you'd never guess it from that definition. I have since picked up a different book "Math the Easy Way" (by Anthony Prindle) which has this to say on the subject: "A prime number is a whole number whose only divisors are 1 and itself". Not only is this definiton MUCH more clear, it's less then a quarter the length. If the goal is to demystify a subject, you should use the least complicated language possible to effectively explain the subject, and this book fails miserably on that front.

This may be a great book if you are already well versed in moderately advanced math. If you're looking for a more basic math refresher, this will not do you any good at all. I havn't read much of Math the Easy Way yet, but so far it's been head & shoulders above this at demystifing everday math for me.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Math that Every Adult Should Know
Comment: As an educator (retired), I got an advance copy of this book. My first reaction was, "This is everyday math?!" Then in the third chapter it hit me: This is not necessarily what everyone knows (if that was the case, there would be no need for the book). It's what every American adult should know by the time they graduate from high school. Sadly, given the state of math education in this country, this book probably should have the subtitle "in an Ideal World." I recommend that anyone who wants to really understand math, and not just rush through it as some sort of evil necessity, study this book thoroughly -- after, or in addition to, their high school courses. And don't fret the abstract stuff. Math is abstract by its very nature.

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