New and Revised Content Diagnostic Test—as a way to address the often weak algebra skills that students bring to this course, a diagnostic exam is provided just prior to Chapter 1. Prerequisite Skills Test assesses student understanding of the core skills students should have prior to starting the course. Fully worked-out solutions to the diagnostic tests are provided in the back of the book as a way to help students self-remediate as needed, saving valuable class time. Quadratic functions consolidation—in the previous edition there were two separate sections for quadratic functions and applications of quadratic functions (3.4 and 3.5). These two sections have been consolidated for ease of teaching. Examples have been updated to reflect the latest data and to incorporate feedback received on the previous version of the text. Approximately 22% of the 454 examples in the text are new or updated. Additional figures—an additional six figures were added to Section 2.2 to help illustrate slope as part of writing the equation of a line. Graphing calculator screen shots have been updated to represent the latest TI calculator, the TI-84+C. These visuals often prove valuable even to students not using graphing calculators. Case Studies—the popular culminating activities at the end of every chapter have been expanded to provide options for extended projects and group work. In addition, two of the case studies are completely new and five have been updated significantly. Student Learning Objectives for every section are provided at the back of the text. These objectives describe what students should be able to do after studying each section of the text. New and Revised Exercises A careful and thorough review of the relationship between examples and exercises has been completed to ensure that students have adequate and relevant examples to refer to when working homework exercises. A table at the beginning of the answers for Review Exercises tells students which section of the book will provide help for each review exercise. Exercises are now better paired so that the even exercises require similar knowledge for solution as the corresponding odd exercise (the answer for which is at the back of the book). Exercises have been updated to reflect the latest data and to incorporate feedback received on the previous version of the text. Approximately 21% of the 3,764 exercises in the text are new or updated.