Essential Maths for Engineering and Construction ─ How to Avoid Mistakes

Don’t let your mathematical skills fail you! In Engineering, Construction, and Science examinations, marks are often lost through carelessness or from not properly understanding the mathematics involved. When there are only a few marks on offer for a part of a question, there may be full marks for a right answer and none for a wrong one, regardless of the thought that went into the answer.
If you want to avoid losing these marks by improving the clarity both of your mathematical work and your mathematical understanding, then Essential Maths for Engineering and Construction is the book for you.We all make mistakes; who doesn’t? But mistakes can be avoided when we understand why we make them. Taking mistakes commonly made by undergraduate students as its entry point, this book not only looks at how you can prevent mistakes, but also provides a primer for the fundamental mathematical skills required for your degree discipline.
Whether you struggle with different types of interest rates, geometry, statistics, calculus, or any of the other mathematical areas vital to your degree, this book will guide you around the pitfalls.

Mark Breach is Principal Lecturer in Engineering Surveying at Nottingham Trent University, UK. He teaches mathematics courses to civil engineering and architectural technician undergraduates.

Finding the PitfallsIntroductionFind an Independent CheckMisleading with MathematicsWhen Ink Meets PaperJuggling with NumbersFalse Assumptions and False LogicLies, Damned Lies and StatisticsSome Mistakes that we MakeErrors in ArithmeticErrors in AlgebraErrors in TrigonometryCalculator ErrorsBad NotationErrors in CalculusTest Yourself