Elementary Statistics (with CD-ROM and Cengage, Infotrac 2-Semester, Ilrn Homework, Personal Tutor, Internet Companion for Statistics 2-Semester Print

My instructor chose this book. However, it is easy to read and seems to move quickly.

I had to use this book for an on line stats class. Perhaps if I was in the class with the instructor who then could have answered my questions about the book it may have been easier to use. As it was I found it very challenging to use and not as self explanatory as the professor seems to have thought. I was glad to be done with it and the course.

I am regularly examining a large number of books in various areas, looking for the "best textbook." In the areas of basic mathematics up through calculus, there is a generic sameness to nearly all of them. Basic statistics is one of those areas and this book is pretty much in the mold of the others. The coverage, both in content and in order, fits what could be considered the basic statistics template. There are a large number of exercises, and solutions to the odd-numbered ones are included in an appendix. The pages are of very high quality and there are a large number of diagrams. It is very easy on the eyes and in basic statistics, the higher the number of diagrams the better. The quality of the writing is on the higher end of the spectrum, which is a significant point of positive differentiation. While I have to make the final decision, it is likely that I will use this as the textbook in my statistics class this summer.

I was assigned this book for use in teaching an introductory statistics course. The CD is quite good, containing a PowerPoint presentation outline for each chapter. It also has a section of excellent examples, but it only goes through the first three chapters, which is unfortunate. Each chapter begins with a "Chapter Case Study", which I found to be worthless. The text and examples in each section & chapter are pretty good, about what would be expected from a textbook. What is different is the "Technology Instructions" inserted throughout, for doing stats with Minitab, Excel XP, and the TI-83 Plus calculator (which my school requires). It's needed, because the TI-83 manual is not very good. Where the book could be better, for my class, is in describing how a student can verify his/her own work. Too many times students make a small mistake early in a problem, which leads to a non-sensical answer -- if the student stops to evaluate the meaning of it (for example, a probability greater than 1). Particularly in hypothesis testing, students frequently build the null and alternative hypotheses backwards, and then end up with a conclusion statement that clearly contradicts the data. While this book is very clear about a five-step approach to *doing* the test, it should have included a sixth step -- verifying that your answer makes sense! Also, some of the problems and examples have errors, as well as vaguely worded questions. This seems to be (unfortunately) typical of all textbooks -- or maybe I'm just jaded. Overall, it's a pretty decent book for a lower-level college statistics course. I would have given it 3.5 stars on its own. The CD is worth the extra half-star. If the CD examples went beyond chapter 3 through the whole book it would get five.