Note that from the preface these notes are based on a half year high school course. The high school certainly was a specialized math high school. Soviet education was superb.<p>I’ve perused the notes and they heavily rely on problem solving to learn the material. It seems like a Moore method style of exposition which I really like. Arnold is a master of mathematical writing and teaching.<p>We no longer teach the formulas for solving cubic and quartic polynomial equations. Nowadays we just teach linear and quadratic equations. For the most part every algebraic equation you can solve by hand that we teach in basic algebra is an equation that can be reduced to a linear equation or a quadratic equation. It’s amazing how many applied problems can be accomplished by this reduction. With the rise of computers and easy numerical computations this isn’t so important but imagine a scenario in which the useful applications all involved degree 5 or higher polynomials. Would we have progressed much?