INTRODUCTION 1 About This Book 2 Foolish Assumptions 3 Icons Used in This Book 3 Beyond the Book 4 Where to Go from Here 4 PART 1: STARTING OFF WITH THE BASICS 5 CHAPTER 1: Assembling Your Tools 7 CHAPTER 2: Assigning Signs: Positive and Negative Numbers 17 CHAPTER 3: Figuring Out Fractions and Dealing with Decimals 33 CHAPTER 4: Exploring Exponents and Raising Radicals 53 CHAPTER 5: Doing Operations in Order and Checking Your Answers 71 PART 2: FIGURING OUT FACTORING 89 CHAPTER 6: Working with Numbers in Their Prime 91 CHAPTER 7: Sharing the Fun: Distribution 105 CHAPTER 8: Getting to First Base with Factoring 123 CHAPTER 9: Getting the Second Degree 135 CHAPTER 10: Factoring Special Cases 155 PART 3: WORKING EQUATIONS 169 CHAPTER 11: Establishing Ground Rules for Solving Equations 171 CHAPTER 12: Solving Linear Equations 183 CHAPTER 13: Taking a Crack at Quadratic Equations 203 CHAPTER 14: Distinguishing Equations with Distinctive Powers 223 CHAPTER 15: Rectifying Inequalities 243 PART 4: APPLYING ALGEBRA 263 CHAPTER 16: Taking Measure with Formulas 265 CHAPTER 17: Formulating for Profit and Pleasure 281 CHAPTER 18: Sorting Out Story Problems 293 CHAPTER 19: Going Visual: Graphing 311 CHAPTER 20: Lining Up Graphs of Lines 325 PART 5: THE PART OF TENS 343 CHAPTER 21: The Ten Best Ways to Avoid Pitfalls 345 GLOSSARY 359 INDEX 363.