This clear, accessible treatment of mathematics features a building-block approach toward problem solving, realistic and diverse applications, and chapter organizer to help users focus their study and become effective and confident problem solvers. The Putting Your Skills to Work and new chapter-end feature, Math in the Media, present readers with opportunities to utilize critical thinking skills, analyze and interpret data, and problem solve using applied situations encountered in daily life. Earlier coverage of the Order of Arithmetic Operations--now section 1.5 so that operations is now covered together before Introduction to Algebra. The discussion of solving linear equations in Chapter 2 now includes coverage of equations with no solution and equations with infinitely many solutions. Section 4.3 now offers a more thorough introduction to polynomials, with the addition of new terminology at the beginning of the section and a new lesson on evaluating polynomials at the end. Revised Ch. 7 on Graphing and Functions includes new coverage of the rectangular coordinate system and slope. The coverage of the rectangular coordinate system in Chapter 7 has been improved for greater clarity.