The Essentials of High School Math was designed to help students learn the basics of mathematics that they are supposed to understand upon entering high school, as well as the fundamental lessons within Algebra, Geometry, and Statistics that students typically learn in ninth and tenth grade. It is specifically intended for students identified as possibly having trouble on an upcoming state-mandated math exam, or for those who have already failed such an exam and must re-take it.
There are sixty-one lessons in the book that are generally designed to be one-day lessons. Some may take two days, and a few may be combined with another lesson or other material, such as sample questions from your state's math exam, in order to fill an entire period of work.
Since there are no official national math standards from the U.S. Department of Education, the lessons of this book are matched against the Standards for School Mathematics for Grades 6-8 by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). This was done to show how this book covers nearly everything that any student should know mathematically before entering high school. There are additional lessons that build upon these Grade 6-8 standards in order to provide remediation on the algebra, geometry, and statistics basics that students typically learn up through tenth grade.
One important feature of this book is that it was created to include everything a student needs to study, practice, and learn the material that any high school student should know. It contains almost 1,000 problems for students to practice, and the lessons themselves contain about 100 questions from actual state exams that are thoroughly explained, along with hundreds of other examples. Each lesson is designed to cover one topic only so that students may learn and thoroughly understand that topic.
In the interest of covering the greatest amount of material with the fewest number of questions, many state exams use questions that touch on several topics per question, such as a statistics question that requires interpreting a graph, or a geometry question that requires the solving of algebraic equations. While this may be a more efficient method for testing students, it can cause someone who understands most of a question to get it wrong. It also can provide misleading data about what skills students are lacking when test results come back to school districts. As such, the practice questions in this book focus on the one topic that a lesson covers.
Whether with the help of a teacher, tutor, parent, or even alone, any student should be able to read through a lesson and have a good understanding of it. The Essentials of High School Math is recommended for any student that needs help with math.
