Calculus and Its Applications has, for years, been a best-selling text for one simple it anticipates, then meets the needs of today's applied calculus student. Knowing that calculus is a course in which students typically struggle--both with algebra skills and visualizing new calculus concepts--Bittinger and Ellenbogen speak to students in a way they understand, taking great pains to provide clear and careful explanations. Since most students taking this course will go on to careers in the business world, large quantities of real data, especially as they apply to business, are included as well.
This book made up for an unskilled instructor. I wouldnt have learned a thing if it wasnt for this book. I spent 16 weeks with this book. I might as well add it to the READ collection
It was fine. Nothing to write home about, but basically everything I know about calculus came from this book. The accompanying material in MyMathLab was super helpful and I really appreciated it. The book itself was less helpful than those problems, but it was good enough to make up for the strange circumstances of taking a math class during the pandemic.
It a good starting place for someone with no exposure to calculus and is looking for businesses application of calculus. I liked how similar example types (the cost/revenue questions at the end of the chapters) were carried through each chapter to see how different techniques and what they mean are applied. Most of the problems are very easy to solve and have little variation from the chapter sample problems which can be good or bad depending on your need. It means I skipped over many of the word problems as they were just the same exact problems with different scenarios so the application part is very narrow.
After failing college calculus due to a brain injury, I retook an independent study course that used this as the text. I found it very useful for someone with some exposure to teach myself the calculus.