Question: Can I use edition A of the textbook while edition B is listed?
Answer: All the material taught in this course has been essentially unchanged for about 200 years, so a few years difference between editions is not going to make much difference. It could be that sections have been renumbered or swapped and it is very likely that exercises have changed somewhat between editions. If you want to use an older edition of the book, it will be your own responsibility to keep track of such changes.
Quoting from the preface of the third edition of Calculus for Biology and Medicine by Claudia Neuhauser:
New To This Edition:
- Approximately 20% of the problems have been updated and new problems have been added.
- The word problems are now labeled to make it easier to identify the area of application.
- Learning objectives have been added to each chapter to help students structure their learning and stay focused on what they need to know.
- Explanations and examples have been added to aid student understanding.
- Additional figures have been added as appropriate to aid students in visualizing the mathematics.
- Several sections have been rewritten or reorganized in response to users.
- The basic organization of the text remains unchanged, with the following enhancements:
- Practicing integration and partial fraction decomposition are now in separate sections.
- The final chapter on probability and statistics has been expanded to include more statistics and more on stochastic processes, and can now be used as a semester-based course.
Question: One of the required texts listed for the course is Just-in-time Algebra and Trigonometry. How essential is this text for the course?
Answer: As far as I know this text is bundled with the main text by the book store at no extra cost for the student. In the course it is assumed that you have already mastered the contents of this book. If this assumption applies to you then you do not need the book. If you don't, the book may be very valuable and you should expect to do a lot of self-study out of it.