This no-nonsense guide provides students and self-learners with a clear and readable study of algebra's most important ideas. Tim Hill's distraction-free approach combines decades of tutoring experience with the proven methods of his Russian math teachers. The result: learn in a few weeks what conventional schools stretch into months.

- Teaches general principles that can be applied to a wide variety of problems.

- Avoids the mindless and excessive routine computations that characterize conventional textbooks.

- Treats algebra as a logically coherent discipline, not as a disjointed collection of techniques.

- Restores proofs to their proper place to remove doubt, convey insight, and encourage precise logical thinking.

- Omits digressions, excessive formalities, and repetitive exercises.

- Covers all the algebra needed to take a calculus course.

- Includes problems (with all solutions) that extend your knowledge rather than merely reinforce it.

Contents

1. A Few Basics

2. Exponents

3. Polynomials

4. Factoring

5. Linear & Quadratic Equations

6. Inequalities & Absolute Values

7. Coordinates in a Plane

8. Functions & Graphs

9. Straight Lines

10. Circles

11. Parabolas

12. Types of Functions

13. Logarithms

14. Dividing Polynomials

15. Systems of Linear Equations

16. Geometric Progressions & Series

17. Arithmetic Progressions

18. Permutation & Combinations

19. The Binomial Theorem

20. Mathematical Induction

21. Solutions