Working With Bridging The Gap College 2014 Brenda Smith
I ran across this material a few years ago when a student of mine was struggling with developmental math placement. The book in question is designed to close the gap between high school preparation and college-level expectations. It covers algebra, statistics, and quantitative reasoning in a way that assumes you haven't had a clean math sequence through community college or prep programs. If you're sitting in a remedial course and your school uses this text, here is what you need to know about making it actually work for you instead of fighting it. The resource itself is structured around practice problems with embedded explanations rather than traditional chapter lectures. That design choice matters because it changes how you approach studying. You cannot read it passively. The book expects you to attempt each problem first, then consult the worked examples. I found that students who just flipped to the answer key immediately after seeing a problem ended up understanding less than those who spent ten minutes wrestling with it first. The retention gap between those two approaches was noticeable in my classroom, usually showing up as a fifteen to twenty point difference on cumulative exams. One thing the book handles well is the transition from arithmetic to algebraic thinking. It does not assume you already think in variables. The early chapters walk through that shift slowly, which helps people who learned algebra through memorization rather than understanding. It is not perfect though. The pacing in the statistics sections moves faster than the algebra sections, and students who are already comfortable with numbers tend to skip ahead only to get tripped up later when the problem formats change.
I encountered a specific problem with one version of the companion online platform. The homework system would sometimes accept partially correct answers if the final number matched, even when the setup was wrong. That created a false sense of mastery. A student could pass a module on solving equations without actually knowing how to set them up. The workaround was to require my students to submit a photo of their handwritten work alongside every online homework assignment. It added about five minutes per assignment, but it eliminated the false positives almost entirely. I reported this bug to the publisher, and while they acknowledged it, the fix was never fully deployed across all campus licenses. If you are using this for self-study, the most practical approach is to go through each section in order, complete every practice problem without looking at the solutions, and then review only the ones you missed. Spend more time on the problems where you got the right answer for the wrong reason. Those are the ones that will hurt you on a proctored exam. The book includes answer keys at the back, but the detailed solutions are usually locked behind the instructor portal or the student access code that comes with new copies. There is also a known issue with the edition regarding rounding conventions. The text uses standard rounding rules in some chapters and truncation in others, particularly in the applied science sections. This inconsistency caused confusion during my spring 2023 term when a quiz answer key used one method and a later homework set used the other. Students who did not catch the difference lost points unnecessarily. If you are working through this material, just be aware that the rounding expectations may shift between sections and always check which method your instructor is using for graded work.
For downloading or accessing the material, most institutions license it through standard academic platforms like Pearson or Cengage depending on your region. You typically need an access code included with a new textbook purchase or obtained through your campus bookstore. Used copies from previous editions often have expired codes, so factor that into your budget. The core mathematical content does not change dramatically between editions, so buying an older version for the text alone is usually fine if you can source the online access separately or skip it entirely and do the work on paper. The book is not a shortcut. It is a bridge, and bridges are meant to be crossed carefully. Going through it systematically with honest effort, rather than racing to finish, will give you a real foundation. The students who treated it as a reference they skimmed ended up back in remedial courses. The ones who did the problems seriously moved on to credit-bearing classes within a single semester. That pattern has been consistent enough across different campus locations that I would recommend the first approach without hesitation. If your program does not require the online component, do not feel obligated to pay extra for it. The printed book contains all the essential instruction and practice. The platform is convenience, not necessity. Just make sure you are working through the problems actively and keeping track of your mistakes. That is where the actual learning happens, whether you are using the official software or a notebook and a calculator.
Get the Full Details
