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Maths Textbooks


Guest bennyb

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Guest benj_israel

My teacher seemed to not like the IBID textbooks at all, thus we HLers don't get one :/

For the Math12 stuff we used Mathpower 12, and for the calculus stuff we used "Calculus" (Dunkley-Scoins) but we don't actually get a textbook encompassing all of the material! Haha I guess I'll be relying on past papers as well to make sure I know all the stuff :/

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Listening to you guys make me feel bad about my school LOL We simply use normal Math textbook (for normal math 11 / 12 courses) plus Mickelson (retired teacher in my school who wrote many mathematic books). So basicly, we are not international at all! use only the textbook we can find in school...Dang!! but i have a copy of H&H and some IBID textbook stored in my computer which i will read through and practice before the final exam (next 2 years :crying: )

Edited by Argiyama
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I use both the IBID book and the Haese and Harris. The IBID book provides great exercise (IB standard i would say), but it's a little on the thick side though. However, the solutions manual is very useful as it provides detailed solutions to ALL the questions in the book. However, i have never seen the Peter Smythe book. Does anyone have a electronic version they can upload here?

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I also use the book by Fabio. I must say, that textbook is terrible! If you miss a lecture you're screwed, worst explanations of life. If what you say is true and the textbook is more difficult than the exam, then I mustn't worry. sigh of relief.

Apart from the fact that the book is horrible, it's true that it has a lot of review questions, everywhere. But every year when we get the new shipment in, there are always at least 30 books that are misprinted! Backward pages, missing pages, etc... Oh and the answers on the back are great...when they're right. Every now and then the answers are wrong, or one book has them right but another has it wrong :S . Which is why our math teacher uses the Calculus 8th edition by Larson/Hostetler/Edwards which is simply AMAZING. It has just about every piece of information needed for Calculus 1-3 and always straightforward, non of that "what if" things that appear in the Fabio book.

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My mum bought this textbook for me from Amazon for Christmas (amn't I lucky?). It is yet to arrive in the mail.

Could anyone tell me what it's like and if they found it helpful? I haven't bothered to buy extra course materials like study guides or textbooks for any of my other courses, but Maths is the subject I struggle with quite a bit, so I hope it's worth it.

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^ You are screwed for the real exam. If you cover everything in that book, make sure you can blitz every single question, at most you will only get a 6.

Is the Haese and Harris book that bad? I mean our teacher occasionally uses it, but she makes her own notes most of the time, from this Calculus textbook.

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We Math SL don't even have textbook material for reference! On top of that, the teacher is lousy at giving notes, and expects us all to know the content! But he is a rather nice guy though... :P

Get yourself a good text! It doesn't matter how nice he is. :D

We're going to use Smedley & Wiseman:

http://www.amazon.com/Mathematics-Standard...sxp_grid_pt_0_0

Which is a very dry book, it's explanations aren't very good. And Studies uses the Cirrito one, I dislike the sloppiness of his past publications, and it's hard to understand explanations sometimes.

So can anyone recommend an additional book for Maths SL? There are quite a few floating around, I also have an Oxford Revision book, but I probably won't look at it until I'm in past paper territory.

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  • 1 year later...

the ibid books are really simple....way way way too simple in fact...i woul try to get a textbook that goes more in depth because the ibid books only answer the learning outcomes but dont really go in depth...but they are good for practice problems bcuz those are the kind you will probably get on the exams

My mum bought this textbook for me from Amazon for Christmas (amn't I lucky?). It is yet to arrive in the mail.

Could anyone tell me what it's like and if they found it helpful? I haven't bothered to buy extra course materials like study guides or textbooks for any of my other courses, but Maths is the subject I struggle with quite a bit, so I hope it's worth it.

hey..you should thank your mom because that book is really pretty good. My teacher uses it in our class and we do everything from it. Its got really good reviews and also has practice IB exams at the back. Also the book is really good at explaining stuff. Youmight want to consider using more than one textbook though, because not all textbooks go indepth for all the topics. But this book is deinitely good for practicing and quick reviews. I would go through and do all the exercises and get myself comfortable with those types of questions; this would really help you in class.

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I'm doing Discrete for Options and we're using the H&H book. I heard its crap for options. Should I buy my own copy of the Cambridge version? Or is there any other book better than the H&H one.

One great thing my teacher does EVERY day before class is photocopy 1 past exam question for warm-up. This help SOOO much, especially when I get questions from another unit that has nothing to do with what we did for homework last night, it stimulates another part of the brain.

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  • 3 months later...

I think for Math, what you need is a lot of exercise. Just do them consistently and familiarize your self with IB Math questions.

"Mathematics Higher Level for the IB Diploma". When I learn Math last time, I found out that this book is quite useful for reference. If you do not know which one, take a look at this link :http://www.oup.com/oxed/international/ibdiploma/maths/

Besides that you can also try to answer past years paper. And set the time too. You should know which question require full use of GDC especially question on paper 2. I still remember my teacher said that paper 2 is actually assessing on technology. So, most of the questions are designed to be answered with the GDC's help.

Also, if you have the question bank, try install them in your computer and answer questions according to topics. You also can view examiners comment on some question and learn from the mistake.

All the best. =D

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My school also uses the Haese & Harris books for both HL and SL. (And studies)

I'd just like to say that I think that this is great book, as it gives a lot of application type questions and good examples to give us some insight on how to do the problem.

really good textbook

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