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The Amazon Store at MillionDollarPetPix.com ( In association with Amazon.com )Cartoon Guide to Statistics - CoolThis book is so cool! It makes the topic clear and fun at the same time. Rating:  - Cartoons add little and subtract muchI have a B.S. (from a school you haven't heard of) and an M.S. (from one you have) in mathematics, and I teach math, but probability and statistics was my _worst_ undergraduate math class (I avoided it in grad school). I came across this book, and I bought it on a chance. I'm sorry to say, it was wasted money... 1) The cartoons at best merely illustrate points made in the text; at worst they are irrelevant interruptions. For example, here we have a cartoon of the reader in a straightjacket after the text mentions calculus. And there's a cartoon of a man rolling dice. This sort of stuff does not advance the discussion. 2) The cartoon format reduces the space available for text. The discussion is therefore abbreviated and compressed; points are made once only, without examples, and often after skipping important steps. I think it's _more_ difficult than a standard textbook. 3) There are no exercises! Who ever heard of a math book without exercises? We learn by doing, I always tell my students, not by just reading or listening. I think this book may be useful to a former student of statistics who wants a review but I can't think of anyone else who would get much out of it. Rating:  - A dry textbook + cartoonsWhenever I try reading this book my eyes just gloss over. It's extremely dry material with cartoons added to every page to make it seem as if it'll be entertaining and easy to learn from but IMO it's neither. On the contrary, it would probably be best as a reference book. Almost every page has a new equation or symbol on it and I rarely felt that they were adequately discussed. "What does it do? When is it useful? What does it mean if the value is high/low?" are questions I constantly asked myself and the book doesn't take the time to answer. Rating:  - Not for the feint of heartSome people will complain that the book is difficult and/ or uninteresting. To this I say, "Dude, it's statistics! Mr. Gonick makes the best of a difficult subject. This is certainly not less friendly than your stats text book." If you want an easy laugh, get a Get Fuzzy compilation, if you want a different and more intuitive approach to statistics, this is your best bet. Rating:  - Ok resourceMy MBA program suggested this book to all incoming first years. In reading it so far, it outlines the concepts well, but doesn't give enough opportunity to practice them and get comfortable with them. I am not getting very much out of it, but I may use it as a resource when I am taking my actual stats class.
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