Mtel Math 03: Prepare for the New General Curriculum Subtest

I purchased this book to help me study for the so dreaded MTEL math subtest. I haven't done any math for almost 20 years, I also have never been good at it in high school. This book has been so helpful!!! It's very well organized into chapters. Each chapter has about 5 to 6 lessons. The lessons are short and contain only what you need to do the exercises. Then Each lesson has a 10 question quiz with detailed answers. The chapter ends with a 20 question quiz that covers all the lessons studied in the chapter along with the detailed answers. At the end of the book you have 2 full length exams with answers of course and a glossary. The book has also a detailed lesson on how to do the open response. The bonus that you will rarely find with any other author of a study book is that whenever you have a question about the book, you can email Mary DeSouza. Not only does she answer questions, but she also gives encouragements and support. She is fantastic!!! The book is excellent and the price is more than reasonable! Very glad I bought it! A little update: I passed the test with an over 240 score!!! Next adventure: The multi subject test! I also recommend that you check math websites. They are great! A lot of them are free and very helpful. Good luck!

***9/4/12 UPDATE*** I took the exam again this past July and finally managed to score above 220. I'm registered to take it again in two weeks and terrified I'll fail again. I'm dangerously close to losing my job because this is the only requirement I have left to get my license and I might not be waivable anymore. I keep using this book but the random errors make me nervous so I'm afraid to trust it. I've viewed the Webinar, but didn't find it to be anymore helpful. ***6/19/12 Update**** Well I took the exam again, and failed. I did get a higher score, but not by much, and not enough to get the conditional pass. I'm going to keep reviewing this book, but the errors others have listed make me very nervous. ----- Sadly, I'm one of those people with a diagnosed learning disability in mathematics (and some other stuff) who has been trying (and failing) to pass this subtest for a while. When I started grad school (a year before the change) no one had said anything. It wasn't until Fall 08 that my classmates and I were finally told, "hey, you better get on this if you don't want to have to take extra math classes." So we all rushed to do so and most of us failed. No one told us how ridiculous the MTELS are, or how it really is a crap idea to take more than 1 test a day. Cut to present day, I'm an English teacher and I'm two years out of grad school and still struggling with this stupid exam. The last few times I took it, I received the exact same score. Finally I wised up and requested extended testing, which I am getting for the May 2012 exam. An admin at my school let me borrow her copy of this book, but it was a few days before the March test and I didn't have a chance to really work with it. I decided if I failed again, not only would I request the extended testing time (which I should have done years ago), but I'd also buy this book and seriously try to study and retain the information. So far when I go through the practice tests, it all seems relatively simple. Which makes me nervous. The test is next Saturday. I'll update with the results and how much I think the book truly helped.

Passed the MTEL General Curriculum Math Subtest on the first try. My goal was to get through 1 chapter a day of this book, there's a total of 8. Not impossible to do, although the information can be a bit overwhleming at times. It was my primary resource, I used What Every 6th Grader Should Know as a supplementary resource. This book prepared me sufficiently enough to pass the test, though I would recommend looking at the MTEL website and getting the practice test, study guide, and the explanation of each subarea and objective. If you do this at the beginning of your study schedule, you'll understand exactly what you need to review. You can focus on those areas and skip the ones you already know, or the ones that this book covers but are not emphasized on the MTEL. Just don't waste your time studying extra stuff that won't be all that important on the test, and don't forget to review study guide information on the essay portion...which will get you an extra 10% and I thought was the easiest part of the exam!!!

This book is full of mistakes. I couldn't even keep track of the number of problems where the the answer was mislabeled. For example, the sample problem for chapter 4 eliminates all answers except for b) y=-2x. Except that answer is also incorrect because they didn't bother showing the x as an exponent, which was the actual correct answer. In other places, they refer to a red or a blue line in the diagram/image critical to the problem, which is crazy because the book is only in black and white. How can I solve a problem accurately if it is referring to color in a monochromatic book?? It's as if they didn't even bother to hire a copy editor before they sent this mess to print. This causes such a waste of time, because you are constantly second-guessing yourself. Aside from the endless errors, explanations are unclear, often combining multiple steps in one. If I got the problem wrong, chances are I need a STEP BY STEP break down of the problem, not a rushed through over-simplified example with steps skipped over. You're better off ordering a used middle school math text book, and skipping this mess of a "study guide".