Algebra 1: Exponents and Operations

Sarah Allen has worked with thousands of students over the years, covering everything from Algebra 1 through Calculus. She has seen the small details that trip students up, the things that are glossed over or not taught in classes that then make problems confusing, and the skills that are so essential that if you don’t build them early on, you’ll struggle in later math classes.

In Algebra 1: Sarah Allen goes into detail, really zooming in on the ‘how’ of little specific skills that are often missed. For example, complex fractions. Sometimes, when solving a math problem, you run into these nested fractions, and no one ever teaches you how to work with them. This book walks you through them, step-by-step, so when you run into them in Algebra, Geometry, Algebra 2, PreCalculus, and Calculus, you won’t be fazed.

This book also dives in deep on:

Working with negative numbers

Divisibility tests and finding factors (laying the groundwork for factoring polynomials later on)

Translating verbal descriptions or word problems into mathematical expressions

Exponents (the how and the why behind the basic exponent properties)

Scientific notation

Order of operations

It also includes many helpful calculator tricks for those students using TI-84 calculators.

This book is structured to build those fundamental skills, and to build them in such a way that you’ll remember them long term and be able to apply them in your future math classes. Every chapter has worked examples, then sets of practice problems. Every few chapters there is a set of review exercises that are a mix of problems you’ve learned so far. There are also tests along the way and a full unit test at the end. This way, you’re getting repeated exposure to all the different skills.

After working with thousands of students, Sarah Allen wanted to create a book that would build those fundamental skills so that students would feel confident and comfortable in math. After much writing, editing, and beta testing, this book is the result!