Precalculus, Seventh Edition

This market-leading text continues to provide both students and instructors with sound, consistently structured explanations of the mathematical concepts. Designed for a one- or two-term course that prepares students to study calculus, the new Seventh Edition retains the features that have made Precalculus a complete solution for both students and instructors: interesting applications, cutting-edge design, and innovative technology combined with an abundance of carefully written exercises.

• New! Side-by-side Example Solutions for select examples include multiple problem solving approaches?such as algebraic, graphical, and numerical?to appeal to a variety of teaching and learning styles.
• New! Checkpoints after each Example/Solution refer students to similar drills in the Section Exercises, allowing students to practice and reinforce the concepts they just learned. Answers to Checkpoints are included at the back of the book.
• New! Vocabulary Checks open every set of Section Exercises. This review of mathematical terms, formulas, and theorems provides regular assessment and reinforcement of students' understanding of algebraic language and concepts.
• Exercise Sets have been carefully analyzed and revised to improve the categorization of problems from basic skill-building to challenging; improve the pairing of similar odd- and even-numbered exercises; update all real data; and add real-life and real-data applications.
• New! Make a Decision applications?presented throughout the text at the end of selected exercise sets?are based on large sets of real data. These extended modeling applications give students the opportunity to use all the mathematical concepts and techniques they've learned and apply them to large sets of real date?analyzing it, graphing it, and making conjectures about its behavior. These applications are featured in Eduspace and the Online Learning Center in an interactive format.
• Eduspace, powered by Blackboard, Houghton Mifflin's online learning environment, brings your students quality online homework, tutorials, multimedia, and testing that correspond to the College Algebra text. This content is paired with the recognized course management tools of Blackboard.
• For copyright 2007, two titles have been added to the Precalculus Series: Precalculus with Limits and Precalculus: A Concise Course. These titles enhance the scope of the series, making it even more flexible and adaptable to a variety of learning and teaching styles.

Dr. Ron Larson is a professor of mathematics at The Pennsylvania State University, where he has taught since 1970. He received his Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Colorado and is considered the pioneer of using multimedia to enhance the learning of mathematics, having authored over 30 software titles since 1990. Dr. Larson conducts numerous seminars and in-service workshops for math educators around the country about using computer technology as an instructional tool and motivational aid. He is the recipient of the 2013 Text and Academic Authors Association Award for CALCULUS, the 2012 William Holmes McGuffey Longevity Award for CALCULUS: AN APPLIED APPROACH, the 2011 William Holmes McGuffey Longevity Award for PRECALCULUS: REAL MATHEMATICS, REAL PEOPLE, and the 1996 Text and Academic Authors Association TEXTY Award for INTERACTIVE CALCULUS (a complete text on CD-ROM that was the first mainstream college textbook to be offered on the Internet). Dr. Larson authors numerous textbooks including the best-selling Calculus series published by Cengage Learning.

The Pennsylvania State University, The Behrend College Bio: Robert P. Hostetler received his Ph.D. in mathematics from The Pennsylvania State University in 1970. He has taught at Penn State for many years and has authored several calculus, precalculus, and intermediate algebra textbooks. His teaching specialties include remedial algebra, calculus, and math education, and his research interests include mathematics education and textbooks.