Customer Reviews:
 Generally excellent February 10, 2007
15 out of 15 found this review helpful
I disagree with Ozzy's review, alas. Of all the textbooks I have used with (hundereds of) students, they almost unanimously consider this the best. It's far from perfect, but fills in many of the gaps left by more popular texts such as the Heinemann series (it also has far fewer mistakes and typos than the Heinemann books). The text is thorough and well spaced on the page, and the examples are generally well chosen. It might be nice to have a third colour in the text (red, perhaps, for the 2nd edition...?), but this is really a minor quibble.
I work on a 'rule of three' when teaching, meaning you generally need three textbooks for any given subject. We bounce between this and the Heinemann (which complement each other well) and then use the SMP books for the odd bit of clarity. (Although excellent on a few things, the SMP books really *do* need explanation by an experienced teacher.)
In short, I recommend this book (and its A2 companion) without hesitation. As mentioned, it's not perfect, but probably the best of the bunch, and works very well alongside the Heinemann. I look forward to Longman/Pearson knocking out some mechanics, statistics, and further maths texts of similar quality.
Mr M
 Lots of practice questions but a lack of explanation December 10, 2006
8 out of 11 found this review helpful
I used this book for my AS Level and I have to say it would be good if you have a good solid maths teacher who can explain the methods of attempting certain questions or if you were really good at maths. If you don't have a solid teacher or aren't completely confident at maths, then you'll be sitting there wondering how on earth to attempt the harder questions. Whilst this book offers plenty of practise questions, it fails to show enough examples on how to target the more challenging questions. A typical double page will be an explanation of how to attempt the easy questions, and then followed by about 10-15 questions, of which 7-15 are not explained in the examples. I would not recommend this book unless you really are confident or you have a very good teacher.
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