Geometry Success in 20 Minutes a Day

I bought this book for my teen daughter who is having trouble in her h/s Geometry class. My daughter is a gifted student, but put her in a classroom with a caring yet inaccurate teacher and watch those grades sink! This is especially troublesome when the teacher is giving incorrect information and mis-grading papers. My daughter's head was spinning--the teacher said one thing, the school textbook said another. End result: disenchanted, frustrated, and failing student (in a class full of failing students)! Anyway, this book starts at grade 5 math (just as a very brief refresher) and quickly but easily glides into high school math. By page 28 my daughter was helped immensely with some of the concepts that were poorly explained or completely overlooked by her teacher. It has bolstered daughter's courage to know that she is not a complete math dummy (she is straight A's in Algebra 2). Armed with a new sense of mastery, she is going to have a conference with the teacher and review each and every incorrectly graded question on her prior exams. The only "con" I have---and it is not a "con" at all but rather a plea to the author--is that there are only *SOME postulates and SOME examples given--none very agebraic, as far as I could determine. I wish the book had continued in its format and gone into the slightly deeper and more complicated "stuff". The book would be a real winner and it would sell many more copies if the author done so. An ideal format would have been to leave each chapter as it is, but add another 2 or 3 pages onto each chapter as optional--going into a TAD more detail with a couple of basic algebra equations for each. The author would pick up a bunch more readers because there is a HUGE market of students who need SAT/ACT prep but not at the really complicated (translation: scarey) level of those big, fat, heavy Barron's/Peterson's/Kaplan's guides. Hopefully the author is reading this post and will revise the book--it's very worthy of doing so! *Rest assured, there is an ENTIRE list of postulates and theorems at the end of the book.

Can you explain the difference between a ray and a line segment? What's the formula for calculating the volume of a pyramid? Does the phrase "distance = the square root of the square of X2 - X1 plus the square root of Y2 - Y1" mean anything to you? If not, you need this book - NOW. Here's why... This book teaches you not only the theorems of geometry, but also its vocabulary. The 20 lessons are presented in a logical order, building on each concept in a sequential way. The lessons really only take about 20 minutes to complete and they are structured to give you enough chance to practice each concept so that you get it without getting bored. When it comes to SAT prep, however, it falls short and here's why... SAT problems are complex, involving at least two geometrical theorems to solve one problem. This book does an excellent job of presenting the theorems one at a time so that you can practice them, but it never gives you the opportunity to practice multiple theorems at once. For example, a typical question on the SAT might show a figure of a circle with a square overlapping part of it. You are told that the perimeter of the square is 24. The question asks you to give the area of the circle. Where do you begin to answer a question like this? To solve it you must first find the radius by finding the length of each side of the square. To do that, you must know the basic theorem that the perimeter of a square is 4x the length of each side (p=4s), then you have to solve for the unknown length of each side of the square, thus giving the radius of the circle. From there you must use the radius to find the circumference to solve for the area... you get the idea. If you couldn't answer the questions at the beginning of my review, PLEASE get this book to use as a solid starting point for your geometry studies, but you'll do yourself a disservice if you rely on it as your only learning tool. Bottom line: this book is hands-down the best tool for gaining a solid learning of the basics of Euclidian geometry. Completing the lessons in this book will give you a foundation solid enough to pass your a G.E.D., but this book alone won't prepare you enough for the SAT.

I am a homeschooling mother of 2 high school students. I have been teaching geometry but with great difficulty. It has been 30 years since I have taken geometry and it was not a happy experience then and a struggle now. We do use a regular textbook but they are not always as clear a I would like them to be. I have been using this book as a back up in teaching the basics. They are clearly presented and easy to grasp. Each chapter presents a concept with self tests to make sure you understand before you go on the the next idea. It is a great suppliment to our textbook and a good review for the GED test.