Search - The Trigonometry and Pre-Calculus Tutor - 2 DVD Set! - 5 Hour Course! on DVD

Trig/Pre-Calc Tutor

Mike S. | Minneapolis, MN | 01/23/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I am a "non traditional" student in my 30s going back to school to obtain a physics degree. I had been away from math for approximately 12 years before starting school last summer. Because of that I had to basically start over with math (intermediate algebra in the summer, college algebra last semester, and currently in pre-calculus). While looking for study aids to get ready for classes I came across this series of DVDs, and they are the best "non required" investment I have made. I have the fractions through algebra tutor video all the way up to the calculus 1 and 2 tutor. I will be purchasing the advanced calculus and physics DVDs as I need them.

I want to say a couple things about the videos overall, and then about this specific one. The videos are meant to be a supplement to a textbook and class. In none of the DVDs I have purchased so far has Jason covered every topic that was discussed in class. He focuses on the foundation topics from which others build. If you think you can just study the material on the DVDs then show up for quiz and test days and get an A in the class, you are greatly mistaken. The best you could hope for with that plan is probably a C. If you know the core/fundamental material well, which this will give you, you will be well prepared to tackle the more difficult concepts that will be presented in class.

As for this DVD in particular, it focuses almost exclusively on the trigonometry, and less so on the algebra. The way most college level pre-calculus classes are set up, including the one I am in, is you do a review of algebra then get into the trig. The only algebra presented in this DVD are exponential and logarithmic functions and complex numbers. I am sure that Jason did not want to be too duplicative with the material on his algebra DVDs, which is probably why he focused more on the trigonometry. I know one of the reviews for this DVD said something along the lines of "this does not cover all the material in a pre-calc class." That is most likely the reason why.


As I said in a review of one of the algebra DVDs, this is a no frills presentation. It is a guy in front of a white board doing multiple problems. It is not exciting or flashy. Whether you are going to find this useful depends on your learning style. If you can learn just watching a lecture style presentation, but one in which you cannot interact and ask questions of the instructor, these will be very useful. If you are someone who learns more by asking questions and interacting and find the idea of watching someone do math problems on TV mind numbing, then you are not going to find this useful and would probably benefit more from a tutor.

*****Update*****

Now that I have finished my class I wanted to provide an update to this review. As I said in the comment to one of the other reviews for this product, and somewhat above, there was no perfect way for Jason to make this DVD. That has about as much to do with how many pre-calculus classes are structured as it is anything else. If you use this along with his advanced algebra tutor set, you will get about 90% of all the material covered in most college level pre-calc classes. You really have to look at those as one long DVD set. Most of what is in the trig/pre-calc DVD will not be covered in college algebra, but a lot of what is covered in the advanced algebra DVD will be at least touched on in pre-calc. That is not even to say everything in the trig/pre-calc DVD will be covered in every pre-calc class either. In my class for example we did not spend any time on imaginary/complex numbers.

As for what is included in the trigonometry portion, Jason does go through all the fundamental concepts you need to learn to do well. It is the stuff that if you do not understand it, you will be hopelessly lost when you get to the more advanced material. The one change I would have made to the DVD is I would have included more of the trig identities like the double angle and half angle identities, and included a section on conics. That said, the information he does give about manipulating the trig identities are the most used, and the most important ones to memorize. Finally, you have to keep in mind this is a five hour DVD set. There is no way to distill 10-15 weeks worth of information into five hours. It is imperative to look at this as a supplemental tool, not a replacement for going to class and doing homework. Anyone who looks at this as a replacement for those things will fail miserably and have no one to blame but themselves."