Sterling - Algebra I Workbook For Dummies

Algebra I Workbook For Dummies, 3rd Edition with Online Practice

Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774, www.wiley.com

Copyright 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2017931102

ISBN 978-1-119-34895-5 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-119-34896-2 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-119-34898-6 (ebk)

1. Table of Contents

Some of my earliest grade-school memories include receiving brand-new workbooks at the beginning of the school year. The pages of these workbooks were crisp, pristine, beautiful and intimidating at the same time. But it didnt take long for those workbooks to become well-used and worn. My goal with Algebra I Workbook For Dummies with Online Practice is to give you that same workbook experience without the intimidation, of course.

Remember, mathematics is a subject that has to be handled. You can read English literature and understand it without having to actually write it. You can read about biological phenomena and understand them, too, without taking part in an experiment. Mathematics is different. You really do have to do it, practice it, play with it, and use it. Only then does the mathematics become a part of your knowledge and skills. And what better way to get your fingers wet than by jumping into this workbook? Remember only practice, practice, and some more practice can help you master algebra! Have at it!

This book is filled with algebra problems you can study, solve, and learn from. As you proceed through this book, youll see plenty of road signs that clearly mark the way. Youll find explanations, examples, and other bits of info to make this journey as smooth an experience as possible. You also get to do your own grading with the solutions I provide at the end of each chapter. You can even go back and change your answers to the correct ones, if you made an error. No, youre not cheating. Youre figuring out how to correctly work algebra problems. (Actually, changing answers to the correct ones is a great way to learn from your mistakes.)

Ive organized this book very much like the way I organized Algebra I For Dummies (Wiley), which you may already have: I introduce basic concepts and properties first and then move on to the more complex ones. That way, if youre pretty unsteady on your feet, algebra-wise, you can begin at the beginning and build your skills and your confidence as you progress through the different chapters.

But maybe you dont need practice problems from beginning to end. Maybe you just need a bit of extra practice with specific types of algebra problems. One nice thing about this workbook is that you can start wherever you want. If your nemesis is graphing, for example, you can go straight to the chapters that focus on graphing. Formulas your problem area? Then go to the chapters that deal with formulas.

Bottom line: You do need to understand and know how to use the basic algebra concepts to start anywhere in this workbook. But, after you have those down, you can pick and choose where you want to work. You can jump in wherever you want and work from there.

Ive also used the following conventions in this book to make things consistent and easy to understand, regardless which practice problems youre tackling:

• New terms are italicized and are closely followed by a clear definition.
• I bold the answers to the examples and the practice questions for easy identification. However, I dont bold the punctuation that follows the answer because I want to prevent any confusion with periods and decimal points that could be considered part of the answer.
• Algebra uses a lot of letters to represent numbers. In general, I use letters at the beginning of the alphabet (a, b, c, k) to represent constants numbers that dont change all the time but may be special to a particular situation. The letters at the end of the alphabet usually represent variables what youre solving for. I use the most commonly used letters (x, y, and z) for variables. And all constants and variables are italicized. And if, for any reason, I dont follow this convention, I let you know so that you arent left guessing. (You may see breaks from the convention in some old, traditional formulas, for example, or when you want a particular letter to stand for someones age, which just may happen to start with the letter A.)
• I use the corresponding symbols to represent the math operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division: +, , , and . But keep the following special rules in mind when using them in algebra and in this book: