Preparation for Calculus is focused on known challenges of precalculus:
 
Students entering calculus have inadequate calculation skills.
Preparation for Calculus develops students’ calculation skills through a wide variety of examples and exercises. Each example includes a thorough, worked solution, and the Try It Yourself feature allows students to practice calculations themselves rather than just view the authors’ work. Active participation in the learning process is crucial to the proper development of calculation skills.
 
Students entering calculus are often not equipped with the mindset to understand the dynamics of functions.
The informal and intuitive presentation of limits and rates of change, which we interpret in terms of the graph, are presented early on in the text and are integrated wherever appropriate. From the beginning, students are presented with the dynamic view of functions and their graphs--essential in any calculus course.
 
Precalculus students face a bewildering variety of topics that may seem unrelated.
Rates of change, limits, and a dynamic view of functions tie together the topics in our textbook and drive their organization. Further, we confine our presentation in the print text to the topics essential for calculus, presenting students with a more succinct, less intimidating text. The last chapter of the text (Chapter 10) serves as a capstone that summarizes the course, showing the unifying concepts from the preceding chapters and serving as a springboard into calculus. Additional necessary chapters and topics vary between instructors, so a number of online-only chapters are available in Achieve to fit specific course needs.
 
Many precalculus students do not see why precalculus may be relevant to their future coursework.
Preparation for Calculus has an extensive collection of applications and exercises. Many of these are taken from the scientific literature and include appropriate references, showing actual applications of the concepts developed in the text. In addition, most sections of the text include a subsection presenting models and applications from a wide variety of fields.
 
Specific Features of the Text
A Student-Friendly Learning Pathway:
Each section begins with a list of learning objectives and is organized to facilitate effective study.  The narrative is punctuated with three types of highlighted boxes:

• Concepts to Remember summarize key ideas for easy reference.  You will find these useful when you attack the exercises at the end of the section.
• Laws of Mathematics display important mathematical theorems.  These often codify the results of mathematical derivations in the narrative.
• Step-by-step strategy provides clear paths for solving specific types of problems.

You will find many worked examples for each section that illustrate the ideas presented there and that provide real-world applications.  These worked examples are followed by Try It Yourself exercises, which give you an opportunity to work through a similar problem on your own.  Answers are provided at the end of the section, so you can check your success as you work through the material.  The Try It Yourself exercises should be considered as stop signs, which should not be passed before successful completion.

As you proceed through the section you will encounter Extend Your Reach questions.  These are not intended as questions you should be able to answer easily on your own.  Rather, they are designed to promote active learning and lively classroom discussion.

Each section ends with a generous collection of exercises of several types.  Your instructor will select from these as a key part of your homework:

• Check Your Understanding are short-answer questions that are designed to check your readiness to proceed.
• Skill Building provides straightforward practice with the ideas presented in the section.
• Problems focus on mastery of the section content.
• Models and Applications are real-world applications that use the ideas in the section.  Many of these are taken from scientific literature.
• Challenge Exercises for Individuals and Groups are intended for you to solve with your friends and classmates.
• Review and Refresh is a collection of exercises from previous sections, designed to keep earlier material fresh in your mind.