Corrections to Larson's College Algebra, A Graphing Approach, 2^nd Edition

If you have the second edition of the textbook, there are some mistakes in the answers. These may or may not be corrected in the "third" edition (actually the second edition, with corrections).

Corrections to the Solutions

1.4.59

The following portions are incorrect: Ymax=10, Yscl=5. The rest of the solution is okay.

1.4.61

The following parts are incorrect: Xmin=-30, Xmax=30, Ymin=-10, Ymax=50. The rest of the solution is okay.

4.2.27

The answer should be 3, not 5/3.

6.3.47

The inverse doesn't exist, but there are many solutions. The textbook is wrong when it says that there is no solution.

7.2.17

The 5^th element of the sequence should be 13/5, not 17/5.

7.3.59

The answer to this problem and questions 61 are switched. The correct answer is 29,921.31.

7.3.61

The answer to this problem and question 59 are switched. The correct answer is 6.4

Corrections to the Text

!= means "not equal to"

1.3.76, pg 114

The restriction says t != 0. For the restrictions to be consistent with the rest of the problems in the section, it should be t != 1. However, the restriction t != 0 is valid, but it is implied by the function itself (can't divide by zero). So, if you're listing all restrictions, you should say t != 0, 1. However, if you're only listing the things that are going to be problems after the simplification, then it should be t != 1. The t != 0 is still implied in the final simplification, so it doesn't need to be stated.

2.2.66, pg 189

The problem says that rectangular region has a perimeter of 230 meters. However, part d asks to find the dimensions if the area is 2000 square feet. The meters in the introductory paragraph should be feet.

2.4.113, pg 215

The wording for part c is misleading. It asks for what factor the oxygen consumption is increased by. "Increased by" is wording that is usually used to indicate that they want the percentage increase, not the ratio of the two values. Factor, on the other hand, indicates that they want the ratio. The answer is that the oxygen consumption at 20 degrees is 2.5 times what it is at 10 degrees; or that there was an increase of 150%.

2.6 Least Squares Regression Line, pg 231

The formulas that the book gives are much harder than they need to be. They do not represent the equation in the standard y=ax+b form that students are used to looking at. You might check the online lecture notes for the easier representation.

4.1.11, pg 325

The h(x) function should be 1/9(3^x). The x was not written in the exponent like it was supposed to be.

4.5, pg 363

Under the section on Gaussian Models, the book incorrectly gives the formula for a standard normal distribution. For a standard normal distribution, the standard deviation sigma is 1. So there should be no sigmas in the formula.

7.4.15, pg 563

The upper limit for the summation should be n, not 5 as written in the text.