Schaum's Outline of Calculus (Fourth Edition)

Students can gain a thorough understanding of differential and integral calculus with this powerful study tool. They'll also find the related analytic geometry much easier. The clear review of algebra and geometry in this edition will make calculus easier for students who wish to strengthen their knowledge in these areas. Updated to meet the emphasis in current courses, this new edition of a popular guide --more than 104,000 copies were bought of the prior edition-- includes problems and examples using graphing calculators.

The Good:
1. LOTS and LOTS of topics covered ranging from limit concepts to l'Hopital's rule to integral tests to multiple integrals, this book covers A LOT (and even a brief intro to differential equations.)

2. Enough practice problems to ensure that the reader will comprehend the material (as is the case with most Schaum Outline books).

3. Lots of graphs for visual learners.

4. A fraction of the price of most calculus books.

The Bad:
1. The only bad thing I could possibly think of in this book is that it explains vector concepts and differentiation and integration of vector functions and gradient, divergence, and curl, but leaves out Green's and Stokes' theorems (must be covered in the vector analysis Schaum book).

For more detail, check out the list of chapter topics on the back cover of the book (it's a pretty thick paragraph)


Indispensible if you want the "A"...   August 18, 2002
Mean Mr. Mustard (Chicago, IL USA)
43 out of 51 found this review helpful

My instructor had a nervous breakdown about 1 month into an integral calculus class. He spent the rest of the semester discussing his personal problems during class, instead of teaching. He stopped giving tests and cancelled his office hours. We had a midterm, which I failed (with a 28/100), along with the rest of the class. My entire grade hinged on the final exam. I bought this book and spent the last half of the year using this book to teach me integral calculus. Two weeks before the final, the instructuor told the class that he was throwing out the midterm, and that our grade for the class would be based solely on our performance on the final exam.

I got a 96/100 on the final, and an "A" for the course. This book saved me. (This sounds ridiculous, I know...but it is absolutely true.)


Great Supplement   May 26, 2006
Aaron Rutledge (Oak Creek, WI)
14 out of 15 found this review helpful

This outline will work best for those looking for a concise supplement to their course text. The strength of this outline is in the solved problems. The weakness is in the explanation of concepts. As advertised, the book contains over 1100 fully worked problems. These problems are indeed fully worked and looking over them can be of tremendous value if you are struggling with solving particular problems in your class. If you are having a tough time with the concepts rather than the problems of calculus I would not recommend this book. The explanations are kept to a bare minimum and tough topics like delta-epsilon proofs and Reimann Integrals are not explained in detail. For instance, this book will not try to justify why you can set delta equal to epsilon to complete your limit proof, it just tells you to do it (which is exactly what you need to do to solve the problem). In other words, this book will help you solve the problems you need to solve in order to pass your exams, but it will not necessarily help you understand why those solutions work. So please do not buy this thinking it will have fuller conceptual explanations. Its strength is in its fully solved problems.


I am VERY Happy with this Book - great 4 self-study   August 1, 2007
Steven Marks (Petaluma, CA United States)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful

In order to take an advanced statistics course (since I have been out of college awhile) I have to take a calculus test. They gave me a sample of 60 questions from prior years and recomended a text that cost $180!!!

Well for 1/15 of the price of the expensive text, I can get about 55 out of 60 questions answered through this one. The ones that are not covered in this book pertain to complex integrations - I'll buy the Schaum's Advanced Calc text and get my answers and still have tons of money left over.

*** Another thing is that the first few chapters are an excellent review of pre-calc, something I did not think I would need but it turns out to be more useful than I thought. ****

The covering of some topics, like LaHopital's rule is better than most texts.

I have not encountered typos yet - when I have that that I did - once I plunge into it more - turns out he is right and I was mistaken.

****Having numberous worked out problems and problems with at least the solutions to check yourself is GREAT FOR SELF STUDY ****


Schaum's Calculus   August 4, 2003
Joseph S. Maresca (Bronxville, New York USA)
12 out of 12 found this review helpful

I've worked with several versions of the Schaum's Calculus
over the years. This work has excellent coverage of derivatives,
integrals, curvilinear motion, polar coordinates, indeterminate
forms, indefinite integrals, centroids, arc length, tests for
divergence/convergence, partial derivatives, volumes, triple
integrals and a host of exotic areas. There are many multi-
dimensional diagrams to aid in your understanding of this
fairly complex subject. I did well in Intermediate Calculus

garnering an "A". In addition, the Fundamentals of Engineering
Licensure Exam covered quite a bit of basic and intermediate
calculus. This is an excellent supplementary work to complement
the course textbook and class notes.