How to Choose a Calculus Textbook
While the majority of calculus textbooks will be assigned to you by your teacher, choosing a calculus textbook for an external test, such as the SAT or a Calculus AP exam, can help improve your understanding of the topic at hand. Choosing a calculus textbook will also depend on your overall proficiency in mathematics as well as what type of calculus you are interested in learning about.
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Proficiency Level
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If you are looking for a calculus textbook best suited to your learning abilities, it is important that you first examine what type of mathematics student you are. Looking through your last few math courses, observe which particular portions of math you excelled in and which courses you struggled in. If you excelled in more visually based mathematics, such as geometry and math in physics, pick out a calculus book that explains sections and topics in a more visual way. In addition, if you excel at all types of math, purchasing an advanced placement textbook may help you learn at the accelerated pace you are already comfortable with.
Calculus Sections
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While many calculus textbooks attempt to give you an overview of the entire mathematical subject, others will focus on particular subsections of calculus, allowing you to specialize and focus your interests. Purchasing a calculus textbook that is more focused is ideal for students who are trying to improve on one specific aspect of calculus that is giving them difficulty or for students looking to write a dissertation or perform a more focused study on one subject. Subjects that calculus textbooks address include: limits, infinitesimals, Leibniz notation and integral calculus.
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Overall Texts
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If you are looking for a definitive work that has become the standard for most mathematics classes, "Calculus" by Michael Spivak is at the top of the list. Other overall texts that are commonly used include: "Introduction to Calculus and Analysis, Volume 1" by Richard Courant and Fritz Joh as well as "Calculus, Vol. 1" by Tom M. Apostol. All of these texts are comprehensive calculus books that offer a series of rigorous proofs and equations for you to solve.
Questions and Answers
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If you are an individual who needs to apply the mathematics you read in order to understand it, it is important that you pick out a book with a large base of questions and answers for you to try and check your work against. "Calculus" has a variety of questions as well as answers to odd-numbered problems in the back of the book. If you want answers to all of the questions, you will need to purchase a supplemental text called the "Associated Answers Book."
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References
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