Maths Textbooks

[Addy]

I recommend you the Haese & Harris HL Book (http://www.ibbookshop.co.uk/catalog/product_info.php?manufacturers_id=23&products_id=363&osCsid=710ed9d60daebc6dec20fec390cb1c75) I used it and it's good.

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

Thank you both. I'll try studying from that textbook this summer.

[rrswong]

Our school uses the H&H books, and I have the IBID ones at home. I think the H&H ones are better for learning new information, as well as questions, and the IBID ones are good for pumping questions, and the worked solutions are also quite good.

Does anyone have the Cambridge text? If so, is it good?

[Sandwich]

I didn't find the Cambridge textbook to be anything special. I went out and bought it as an alternative to the intimidating thing that is Haese & Harris, but at the end of the day, I actually ended up liking the way the H&H book was split up. I found it reasonably effective to revise from-- and boy did I do a lot of revision for maths!! It was quite plain and I found its explanations/examples (and layout) inferior to the H&H one, although that may just be personal preference.

[Tilia]

Why does everyone seem to be against the H&H? I'm using it and I think it's pretty good. But are the exam questions so different that I'm in trouble?

[Sandwich]

IMO the big problems with the H&H mostly go back to the fact some questions are just not going to turn up on a paper ever (especially the harder ones) and the wording is rarely IB-esque. The size of it is also pretty intimidating xP They also use some weird methods (like the Unit Circle etc.) which a lot of maths teachers have better alternatives to. However the way it's split up and the less practical parts of its explanations are often really extremely good

[sweetnsimple786]

I have a semi-random question.

My teacher doesn't use any IB associated/affiliated/related/whatever texts, but I think we get the foundation we need. So would it be better for me to look over other texts specifically written for the exam I'll take or just do past papers? I'm in Math SL.

[Tilia]

IMO the big problems with the H&H mostly go back to the fact some questions are just not going to turn up on a paper ever (especially the harder ones) and the wording is rarely IB-esque. The size of it is also pretty intimidating xP They also use some weird methods (like the Unit Circle etc.) which a lot of maths teachers have better alternatives to. However the way it's split up and the less practical parts of its explanations are often really extremely good

I don't mind if the questions in it don't show up, as long as it contains what will show up. And what's wrong with the unit circle? The students in the national programmes aren't taught the unit circle until after they've learned all trigonometry, so they don't really know what they are doing when they are using sin, cos and tan.

Personally, I think the unit circle is really helpful and good. It's my best friend after my calculator

[Tiara Angel]

Our school is using the Haese and Harris books for Math SL. What's the book like? I heard the Maths HL one is horrible but I'm not sure if the Maths SL book will suffice for the exams.