Topics covered in this book by chapter include: Chapter 1 – Basic Numeracy Ingredients (percentages, ratios and proportions, reciprocals, order of operations); Chapter 2 – Wonderful Math Recipes (overlap scenarios, matrix scenarios, mixture scenarios, weighted average scenarios); Chapter 3 – Favorite Numeracy Dishes (markup vs. margin, price-cost-volume and profit, break-even point, aggregate costs vs. per-unit costs, efficiency, distribution and allocation); Chapter 4 – Special Math Garnishments (translating basic graphs: line graphs, pie charts, and bar charts, correlation, measures of average and dispersion, and statistical significance); Appendix I – Numeracy Principles 1 to 30 (summary of all principles); Appendix II – The World of Numbers (number terminology, basic operations, number rules, divisibility rules); Appendix III – Translating Words into Numbers (classic translation scenarios, how to solve equations, making tricky conversions); Appendix IV – Tackling Squares and Cubes (using the "big" seven numbers); and Appendix V – Understanding How Variables Change (relationships: direct, indirect, proportional, disproportional).

This book – a gold medal winner at the President's Book Awards and winner of the USA Book News Best Book Awards – is suitable for high school and college students, as well as any individual wanting to improve his or her core essential math and numeracy skills.

"This book brilliantly shows the structure and subtlety of basic math. Math is a global language that knows no borders and opens opportunities for us all." –Rick Frishman, author, speaker, and media expert; treasurer and secretary for the Dr. Mark Victor Hansen Foundation, "literacy to end poverty"