The Humongous Book of Calculus Problems (Humongous Books)

I strongly recommend this book to anyone who is taking Calculus. Each problem is explained step by step and the formulas are constantly reminded. There are a wide range of problems from easy to difficult which makes learning gradual and permanent. The writer has a good sense of humor and is a good teacher.

What a geat book, especially for self study. If you use it along with other problemn collections like the Schaum's series, you should be able to solve almost any problem in a Calc I or II level course.

lots of problems explained: excellent example problems all done out for basic explanations or even a review if you or your parents are a little rusty. Similar excellent review for Humongous Book of Algebra problems

I found this book to very helpful with both differential and integral calculus classes. the way it explains the subject matter was better for my brain than the actual textbook. plus there are tons of examples to work out that also provide step by step instructions on process.

It not only provides us math examples, but only gives us many formulas. The writer leads us to where we need to start and how to practice math easily. I prefer to learn math this way, so I feel painless to math any more. Very helpful. Worth money.

At some point (ok, probably SEVERAL points) in your Calculus I or Calculus II class, you will grab this book and be so relieved to see a problem just like the one you're stuck on -- worked out in detail with helpful explanations. This book builds confidence and fills in a lot of gaps in lectures. Highly recommend!

I have also read an another much better written book by the same author (Humongous Book of Statistics Problems) and I am disappointed by this academician book that is not much better than a standard Calculus textbook.

Most of this book is dedicated to theoratical concepts of Calculus. There is, of course, nothing wrong with that. Except that the book is just as dry, boring, and uninspiring as regular Calculus textbooks that most of us would fight to stay awake while reading.

There are only few problems dedicated to practical application of Calculus. The rest is dedicated to graphs, limits, theorems, and equations. That's too bad because Calculus is one of the most, if not THE most, practically useful mathematical concept known to man.

The book also spends surprsingly few pages on differentiation and integration. The maximum and minimum values using differentiation, for example, are hardly covered and certainly not covered in depth.

I don't believe in learning Calculus for the Calculus itself (learning how to draw graphs and finding its limits and areas etc). I want to learn Calculus so I can use its power in real life. In that, this book was quite disappointing.

This book is not that thorough. Only a couple problems per concept, and the problems are pretty basic. These are technically easy enough to be my teachers' examples. If you really want to learn and develop calculus skills, get another book. This book is a bit too basic to be taken seriously. The AP Calculus exam, does NOT have these types of easy-peasy problems, no offense. All in all, I just don't find this book too serious to be a prominent contender in Calculus workbooks. I prefer Shaum's outlines. They have waay more difficult problems.

When you go through the different sections there is only one maybe two problems to practice then it advances. More practice problems would make this book 10x better. It should not be titled the humongous books of calculus problems when there are not that may problems.

This product is almost worthless in my current Calc I class. The examples and "practice problems" are not like anything you will do in the class and they are not in the order you learn them in, so after a somewhat exhaustive search you find problems that dont help.

I own just about every Humongous book in the series, and I like this one: The Humongous Book of Calculus Problems.

It's been a very long time since I did a lot of work on Calculus, and working with the book took me a year and a half since I was on and off with it. It has been a good journey for me. However much I like the book, I still think it needs a lot of improvement.

As the book claims to have 1,000 Calculus problems, that is not true. The first 8 chapters and the first half of chapters 24 and 26 are worthless as they should have been confined to the other book covering Algebra/Precalculus problems and the space be devoted to Calculus only. I counted them up, and that is 307 problems that are not Calculus. It accounts for 30.7% of the book, almost a third. What a waste.

It's just weird to see a lot of Conic Section questions in the beginning yet they have pretty much zero presence in the rest of the book. There are some topics missing, and some of the other topics aren't comprehensive enough as they should've been. For example, there is nothing about logistic growth.

Chapter 28, covering the Taylor and Maclaurin series, is weak and redundant. It doesn't even go in depth about them either. There is not enough coverage of applications. Worse still, the author doesn't even bother with vector calculus or mixing calculus with linear algebra. I don't even see much of Calculus word problems related to physics.

As for the rest of the book, it has been very good as the author goes in great lengths in explaining the solutions in details. Sometimes, he doesn't convey a better technique or makes it simple enough. A point in case is during the coverage of the centroid. I hated what the author gave to the reader, the complicated formula, when there is a much better presentation of it that makes it intuitively easier to memorize.

The readers may think that reading The Humongous Book of Calculus Problems will simplify the language, but it won't happen. It's just still the standard Calculus language, and attempting to change the way the language has been conveyed will not solve the dilemma. Either the readers will have to spend a large quantity of time with the material to truly learn the subject or they will be forever locked out. The author has good notes on the sides that put things in perspective.

A few of the reviewers here did not find The Humongous Book of Calculus Problems a useful book for the AP Calculus; I absolutely disagree. This is a very good book that actually explains the major concepts very well and goes through them in a step-by-step manner, tackling the tough ideas during the procedures.

I feel confident that after going through The Humongous Book of Calculus Problems, I have seen my base knowledge of Calculus particularly indurated. I advise the readers to advance to the next level of Calculus which is physics orientated to unleash the power of Calculus.

All in all, I think The Humongous Book of Calculus Problems is a need of an update, to throw out the 307 problems and keep the book strictly Calculus with additional topics and application based problems while making Chapter 28 a better one.

Errata
3.1 of pg. 28 should be a plus sign in the expression

11.32 of pg. 164 should be 56, not 64.

11.39 of pg. 167 should be 7 as the solution (before it says " ,does"), not ½. Again, in the next two functions, it should be equal to 7, not ½.

11.40 of pg. 167 should be 7 (before it says " ,does"), not ½.

11.41 of pg. 168 should be 5 , not ½ and 4.

11.42 of pg. 168 should be 1 and 4 respectively , not 0.

14.19 of pg. 215: the whole thing is incorrect. It should be x sub 3 = [(1.75)^2 + 3] / [2(1.75)] = 1.73214. And then, the accuracy will be |sqrt(3) - 1.73214| = 0.000092.

16.8, 16.9, and 16.10 of pg. 252: "a minor axis of length 12," not "a major axis of length 12."

22.8 of pg. 397: dx should be included in the integrand after "Calculate the volume of the solid."

23.10 of pg. 431: [I was mystified about the whole thing until I realized something was obviously missing] Add the pi(r^2) to the formula.

25.18 of pg. 477: the final answer is 9,082, not 9,028.

28.2 of pg. 530: it should be 9, not 8 in the denominator.

This book, along with "The Humongous Book of Calculus Problems", are not calculus textbooks and they are not meant to be.
You will not find a high degree of rigor and all the standard proofs and theorems. The target audience of this book does
not include math and science or engineering majors. However, let me quickly add that those students are not necessarily
excluded.

First, understand that if you don't have a reasonably strong background in precalculus then calculus is intellectual torture.
Before you begin calculus be sure that you understand topics such as factoring, exponents. logarithms, functions, composite
functions, etc.

This book covers most of the standard first year topics of calculus. The book is written in plain easy to read English so
that you learn the computational mechanics well enough to do examples and problems without necessarily knowing why the tech-
niques work. The definitions are sufficiently correct so as to convey the meaning of a concept to more than just mechanics
but not deep enough to take to grad school.

Kelley knows his target audience and does not exceed their capacity to understand; he truly wrote this book for his students
and not just to exercise his ego.

The most helpful thing you can do is to use this book and "The Humongous of Calculus Problems" together. the HBCP contains tons
of solved problems with very detailed explanations of every step in a calculation or solution to a problem and there are many
problems. Here again, Kelley really knows his audience and serves them well.

Let me finish by saying that I am a math nerd and purist of the first order. But that is for me. For those who are not you can
make your life a lot easier by using these two books.

I understood Calculus 1 because I had a very good teacher in highschool but once I hit college, I had one bad professor after another. As my teacher from highschool had mentioned, most professors are really good at doing the math but don't have the skills to be teachers, explaining math in a way people can understand. So after failing Calculus 2 twice, I bought this book and studied for my LIFE! After struggling the first couple weeks of this course over the summer, I became extremely desperate and did some research for books that'll help me survive this class. The problem was, there wasn't many Calculus TWO books, mainly just books that covered topics from Calculus ONE. This book had good reviews too, so I went out and bought it. This book helped me out most in the homework we got every single day. It gave me clear explanations why this and that is wrong and the common mistakes one would face when doing this and that problem.

For me, this book was a miracle. Thank you Michael Kelley for making it! This book was hands down the key to passing Calculus 2 with a B. Without it I would've easily failed (like a 35% or something). This book is a keeper. I'm using it to help my girlfriend with her homework.

I bought this book because I couldn't follow while I was reading the textbook and had a hard time following my math teacher at college. So I decided to buy another book for reference, and make it easier for me to understand these concepts, and try them out. I liked how he approached each problem from easy to difficult degree of problems. This book explains it very clearly and what other steps we can approach solving the problem. It also gives you tips, formulas and graphs to memorize too. Awesome content and this book is highly recommended.

So what makes this book different than the other books. I've tried Dummies, Demystified, and even the same authors book, Complete Idiots Calculus. This book assumes you are a total idiot at PreCalc, that's what I needed. I was taking a Calc class after being out of school for 5 years and I don't even remember any PreCalc and all the other Calc books assume you know the basics. So they skip over all the simple steps because you are suppose to know them to do calculus. But I don't remember any math at all so I had a hard time. This book explains all the simple steps too that's why it's better than the other help books on Calculus. Good luck to you too.

I am no sales representative but an average student who has never taken calculus before and was lost when I had to take it for college. See I have a professor who expects students to know everything and won't go at a pace or stop to explain and skims through it like we're geniuses.

This book doesn't do that and in fact it explains EVERY LITTLE THING for you. It's also fun and entertaining and doesn't really make you feel dumb for not understanding it. I absolutely love this book and I had bought this book earlier, but had not expected it to be any good until I opened it 3 days before my midterm. Every thing I had not understand or comprehend was understood after reading through the explanation.

If you're a student who feels weak in maths and/or is lost and confuse. Seek help from this book. You definitely won't regret it.

As someone who struggles with calculus, this book is perfect for someone like me. I recommend the Humongous Book of Calculus Problems: For People Who Don't Speak Math for anyone in the same situation I am- someone who constantly struggles and has trouble understanding what to do. You'll get it upon reading this book, I guarantee it.

Anytime I have a calculus or math question, I usually start with the Calculus Problems book because it has an easy format and the explanations are crystal clear from integration to infinite series. The book has a nice flow and is well organized as each Chapter focuses on one particular issue.

Anytime I have a calculus or math question, I usually start with the Calculus Problems book because it has an easy format and the explanations are crystal clear from integration to infinite series. The book has a nice flow and is well organized as each Chapter focuses on one particular issue.

I bought the book for my daugther. I went through it. It was clear and simple to review. I gave it to my daugther (she is taking Calculus in High School). She went over a few chapters; then she shared her thoughts with the teacher. Her final evaluation " This book makes Calculus look so simple. I love it (book) Mom."

This book, at first, strikes you as well rounded. You can take the problems and work them out yourself, then look over the explained solution for clarification. That is all great and dandy but I find it incredibly annoying when a math book calling its users dumb, essentially, in the title, makes its own errors. For reference, the error I recently stumbled upon was on page 38 where the inequality sign switches from greater than or equal to to less than or equal to in the solution. There were other errors but I did not write down the page numbers. I'm using this book for self-study and I'm quite good at math but I fear for the less math competent, they will take the errors as truth and learn the math improperly trying to explain off why a sign would switch or a number would be negative. Just a warning. I'm greatly considering purchasing a different book because of this annoying occurrence.

I am really happy with this book. The review section is great and the layout is very clean. However, I have already found a few mistakes which makes me wonder which mistakes I am missing. Could really use an errata.

So, I felt a little misled receiving this book. I understood it to be a WORKBOOK with solutions, but instead it is a book full of examples worked out for the reader. This may prove helpful to some, but did not fit what I was going for.

I purchased this along with Kelley's "IDIOT's GUIDE TO CALCULUS". Neither was of much help. I expected to find problems worked out step-by-step to aid in my homework only to be very disappointed by the lack of content in the books. I am a person that enjoys the challenge of math and found these books to be lacking the help a student is probably seeking. None of the book's examples walk you through entirely.