Practice Makes Perfect Linear Algebra: With 500 Exercises

The book has been well worth the money so far. There are a decent number of practice problems and you can click the problem to go right to the solution for it in the back of the book. I do wish there was a little more explanation on some sections, as I found myself supplementing with Khan academy. The overall price of the book for the quality is great, though, given that most course textbooks are $100+. I wish the book was a bit more self-contained but I didn't go into this thinking it was the only Linear Algebra textbook that I would need. It's a decent book and it's a good resource if you find yourself needing practice problems.

I purchased this book to supplement my class textbook and to have a second book as a reference. It really didn't help me in my course.

This definitely a book for undergraduates at it offers excellent revision of topics found in your standard linear algebra module. That said, it is lacking some things I hoped would be covered specifically vector and plane problems. I especially liked the fact it gave short explanations of the theory for each topic before providing worked examples and plenty of questions. The explanations are short and too the point so they would not substitute for a more in-depth textbook or lecture notes as they assume you have covered the material at least once before. Each topic has about 10-20 questions split into 2 or 3 separate tasks of varying difficulty so if your looking for a big book of problems this isn't it as the number of questions isn't sufficient for that sort of revising. However, the fewer problems mean that the book itself is light and perfect for carrying around during revision time. One small issue is that the questions are generally pretty basic so they will help you memorise and learn techniques but you will not see unusually worded or complex problems and this should be used alongside past papers and other resources if you are taking an exam. I noticed in my degree that a lot of people sat through the LA module thinking it would never come up again and so didn't bother learning the material very well. Unfortunately LA comes up a lot in all areas of mathematics especially applied, theoretical physics and statistics so this is great book to help you get up to speed if you have glossed over LA in the past. Strictly a revison tool and NOT a textbook this is a great lightweight option for any maths student.