McDougall Litell Issues with notation My school uses textbooks by a company called McDougall Litell for all math classes. My friend pointed out to me that there was no really decent notation used in any of those books. Would it be possible if a professor or college student could tell me what notation is necessary to know for a freshman college class? Thank you for any help. I am sorry if this question is too soft, but when I look at college textbooks I get kinda scared.
 A: For the most part I would suggest not to worry too much, colleges/universities allow people in from a lot of schools many of which will use the textbooks you use. They know this and are capable of accounting for it, not to mention that in any case you will be fine to ask.
Whilst I don't think you really need to be overly concerned, if you have any more specific questions I will be more than happen to try and help.
A: You shouldn't really have that much trouble learning new notation after you read it enough times, but you should know Set Builder Notation, logic symbols, and other set theory symbols. An example of set builder notation is
$$\{x\in\mathbb{R}\,|\,x>3\}$$
which is read "$x$ in $\mathbb{R}$ such that $x>3$." The other symbols you should know are
\begin{matrix}
\forall & \text{for all}\\
\exists & \text{there exists}\\
\subseteq\quad\subset & \text{subset}\\
\supseteq\quad\supset & \text{superset}\\
\cap & \text{intersection}\\
\cup & \text{union}\\
\emptyset & \text{empty set}\\
\land & \text{and}\\
\lor & \text{or}\\
\in & \text{in}\\
\neg & \text{not}\\
\iff & \text{if and only if}\\
\implies & \text{implies}\\
\impliedby & \text{implied by}\\
\to & \text{to}\\
\end{matrix}
