I find it hard to believe that whoever gave this book five stars has actually read it and gone through the problems. The solutions in the back are often wrong. At first, I thought I was making mistakes in solving the systems, but after I approached my instructor and solved them together, we found that a lot of the author's solutions are incorrect. The text also lacks continuity and quality examples. After going through my statics and strengths class, I have a sneaking suspicion that the author had an undergrad formulate the problems. One star is too generous.

Although many of the examples in the book were sufficient, there were so many mistakes that it was easy to lose confidence in the material (especially the first time through it). There were problems in some of the chapters that included concepts not covered until later chapters, and there is no student solutions manual available. Overall, I'd say thanks but no thanks.

The solved problems are terrific and classic examples encountered.The text is well written and understandble.

This could have been a great book. The story of a daring attempt to find polar explorer Sir John Franklin (analogous in importance today to finding lost astronauts) based on the personal journal of an officer in the rescue expedition's company, R. R. Carter. So many interesting aspects could have been explored: the collegial but competitive feeling between the ill-equipped US expedition and the advanced Royal Navy counterpart; the escapist focus polar exploration enjoyed on the eve of the Civil War; Carter's personal evolution. Instead, the author merely wraps Carter's Spartan journal in a perfunctory introduction & summary. Drama aside, this is no scholarly reference either. Not one map to help the poor reader trace the expedition's progress; no helpful amplifying commentary that could have helped the reader put Carter's often esoteric colloquial references into context. A work of FICTION (Yoyage of the Narwhal, Barrett) is a more interesting and scholarly work about this subject.

This could have been a great book. The story of a daring attempt to find polar explorer Sir John Franklin (analogous in importance today to finding lost astronauts) based on the personal journal of an officer in the rescue expedition's company, Randolph Carter. So many interesting aspects could have been explored: the collegial but competitive feeling between the ill-equipped US expedition and the advanced Royal Navy counterpart; the escapist focus polar exploration enjoyed on the eve of the Civil War; Carter's personal evolution. Instead, the author merely wraps Carter's Spartan journal in a perfunctory introduction & summary. Drama aside, this is no scholarly reference either. Not one map to help the poor reader trace the expedition's progress; no helpful amplifying commentary that could have helped the reader put Carter's often esoteric colloquial references into context. A work of FICTION (Yoyage of the Narwhal, Barrett) is a more interesting and scholarly work about this subject.

The average middle or high school student knows 90 % of the word in Courses II and III. For maximum effectiveness, it should be as a way to have 5th graders build a vocabulary base for their middle and high school years.

I hoped this book would help me perform basic maintenance, make very minor repairs and have some idea of what the problem is when I have to take the car to the mechanic. Unfortunately, the book is very hard to understand and information is hard to find in it. Maybe a professional mechanic could understand it, but then a professional mechanic would be probably have official information from GM. The information may be accurate (I have no way of knowing), but this book makes little attempt to help out the beginner.