<p>You know how some professors assign hundreds of pages for reading or even a whole novel in an impossibly short amount of time? Do you read all of it or get by with just skimming or not even read it at all?</p>
<p>I'm currently taking 2 English survey classes and, ironically, working on an article about how kids nowadays manage to study with all the distractions and course load. Personally, I've been getting by on SparkNotes but find I miss a lot of good stuff when I don't read the actual text.</p>
<p>So when it comes to these long, and sometimes tedious, assigned readings, how do you approach it and does it work for you?</p>
<p>I didn’t read any of the assigned readings except for in one class. I got a 3.0. I’m happy with that considering the amount of work I put in, but I know I might not always be able to pull off not reading anything.</p>
<p>“Read” is kind of ambiguous here. If it comes to literature (as an English major), I read very well because the English professors really test you at my school. But for many other classes, I just skim the readings for important terms/facts. </p>
<p>Last semester (my first semester), I had a seminar class with no tests/quizzes and the final was an essay. I skimmed over all the readings because we used them in discussion. I never bothered to read them very thoroughly because I didn’t need to.</p>
<p>For my sociology class, I did the same. I only looked up important terms/facts in our very extensive readings. And I did perfectly fine in the class (mostly because the teacher was new and a very easy grader).</p>
<p>For my Brit Lit class, I actually read very thoroughly because my professor would pick out very minute details to test us on. After reading the work and highlighting and writing notes, I would then read over the sparknotes to make sure I didn’t miss major points. And before a quiz/test, I would go over my notes again. </p>
<p>So, really, depends on the class in my experience. It can go from not really needing to read at all, to having to take intensive notes on the readings.</p>
<p>The only course I took this semester that had any non-textbook reading was humanities, and I made sure to do in-depth readings of each one since that was what the course was built upon. I did outside research on the material as well. I also had a large amount of assigned reading for my logic class (from Goldfarb’s Deductive Logic), which I read in fear of being horribly lost in that course.</p>
<p>I had a legal history class with about two hundred pages of assigned reading a week which I HAD to read (we were tested on this reading and had to write a summary of the key points with cited quotes- both due in each week’s discussion section). Some of this reading was skimmable (eventually we knew what to pay attention to and what the professor didn’t care about) but not a lot. </p>
<p>On the other hand, I took an intro writing class (basically an AP English Lang-type class) and was able to get an A in that class by doing zero readings. All of the papers required nothing from those readings (except the research paper, but that was our own prerogative as far as choosing sources) and they were really only there to supplement the final portfolio grade. All of the reading based assignments were very very easy to BS.</p>
<p>I read almost all of my assignments, thoroughly, and take notes. Right now I am taking a 400 level poli sci, a 300 poli sci, and two 300 level english classes, (plus a 200 level american culture class but that doesnt really count) so I have at least a thousand pages of reading to do per week. It’s not that bad.</p>
<p>The only time I don’t do the reading is if it’s in a class where the professor tests exclusively on lecture and there is no discussion portion of the class, which has happened to me a couple of times.</p>
<p>Sometimes I did, but it depends of the class for me. Chemistry, I had to read if I wanted to get ahead but for history I skimmed through the books and ended up with a B on the final.</p>
<p>Professors expect that you will skim through material like textbooks, that is why there are lectures, to supplement the reading. In an English class, or anything with literature, you ought to read the whole book to provide meaningful insights through discussion or essays. I use Gradesaver as opposed to Sparknotes, it just has more information.</p>
<p>Funny story. In my college the students are smart enough that professors assume everyone is on top of the material, so they don’t test all the material, or don’t test at all (this is for humanities/social science classes, obviously, given the existence of ‘readings’). They usually have very loosely framed essay assignments. This means for someone like me, who is never on top of the material, I can pick and choose which few articles I want to read, and write my essays on very narrow topics of my own design. I’ve only been in intro and intermediate level courses and this is the way it worked. Good grades for me too!</p>
<p>In terms of homework, aside from a couple short papers a week and occasional long papers or exams, that’s really all I have to do. It’s not that much.</p>
<p>I read every single page that I am assigned. I often don’t finish readings before we discuss them in class, but I always catch up before a test.</p>
<p>For the english course and the political science course I took, I did all of the readings. For technical courses (math/physics/engineering) I used to do all of the readings freshman and sophomore year. Now, though, I go to lecture first, and if I think that I didn’t understand the lecture that well, I do the reading corresponding to the lecture (if available).</p>
<p>I HATE reading. I only did the required reading for one class b/c of pop quizzes. It was only about fifteen pages twice a week but it was torture.</p>
<p>I do ** all ** the assigned readings and diligently take notes on them up until the first test, after which I can decide whether or not the reading was really neccessary. Usually about half the time it’s not, and I can get by looking at the powerpoints or just listening in class.</p>
<p>i was able to get by skimming for all of my classes but one. for sociology i had a much harder time. i wasn’;t really interested in the subject, found the hundreds of pages of readings boring so i didn’t really read and just skimmed… that came back to bite me in the butt for that class</p>
<p>I am in a community college. Whenever an instructor says “Read this”, I read it. I don’t care how long it is. Instructors here, especially in English classes, tend to have pop quizzes the next classmeet on the reading assignment. If it’s really long, I break it up. If it’s 40 pages, I’ll read 10 pages here, take a break, read 10 more pages, repeat.</p>