<p>For French 1 and Pol Sci 5, I found out that their books are insanely cheaper (literally $10) an edition below the current ones. The lower edition were published in 2005 and the newer ones in 2008/2009, so there are almost no used copies.</p>
<p>Does anyone have experience in buying lower editions? Will it annoy your professors or make it harder for you to learn in class? Thanks.</p>
<p>yes you generally need the newest version in classes that use their textbooks</p>
<p>In classes that don’t use their textbooks (like Bio 1A-B and Chem 3A-B), your version doesn’t mean anything.</p>
<p>I know for science classes it doesn’t really matter, but I’m not sure about humanities. To be 100% sure email the professor.</p>
<p>Sometimes problems change between editions but this is probably not a case here. Page numbers and chapters will probably will be a bit different which is not a big deal, you just have to check with a friend to make sure you are reading the right stuff.</p>
<p>I recommend you find out the difference between the editions. Sometimes they do major restructuring which makes it a bit harder to learn. But usually editions are changing a chapter here and there and updating some figures. Not a big deal.</p>
<p>They often do change practice problems between editions, which makes it harder to use older editions</p>
<p>For foreign languages, I believe you do need the latest edition because the practice problems change. I took Italian 1 a couple of semesters ago and like you, I noticed the massive difference in the pricing of the latest edition of the textbook and the older editions ($120 compared to $5-20). I’m glad I bought the latest one b/c we used it in class everyday! And even if most of the practice problems were the same (which I doubt they were), the pagination is different. It would have been frustrating and confusing to navigate through a textbook where the page numbers meaning nothing for an entire semester.</p>
<p>For social sciences and humanities, it depends on the class. Right now, I’m taking Poli Sci 3 for summer session A. The class ends next Thursday and I’ve read a total of three pages of the textbook. From my experience, in social science classes, a lot of the material that shows up on midterms and finals come from lecture (unless stated otherwise of course).</p>
<p>Usually no. but sometimes… you have to. check with professor</p>
<p>who are you taking poli sci 3 with and how’s the professor?</p>
<p>sorry to hijack. quick question!</p>
<p>I’m taking Poli Sci 3 with Laura Stoker. The course material is really boring… like boring to the point where you can’t even focus b/c all you can think about is how boring the stuff is. But she’s a really good professor (and from I heard, the best to take for Poli Sci 3). She tells a lot of interesting and funny anecdotes about her research travels.</p>
<p>I’m really glad I took it during summer sessions though. The class is 6-weeks-long as opposed to 15/16-weeks-long. I don’t think I would been able to handle Poli Sci 3 for an entire semester.</p>
<p>What about for math and econ textbooks?</p>
<p>For math, you probably want to most recent because they usually change the practice problems between editions (you usually do hw problems from the book).</p>
<p>For econ (im guessing econ 1), I don’t think it really matters. Intro Econ does not really change and you do not to practice problems.</p>
<p>For the textbooks with “Berkeley special editions”, does the original non-Berkeleyspecial edition/international edition work too? I’m under the impression it’s just more pages in the original, and Amazon sometimes has these things quite a bit cheaper…</p>
<p>The only reason you would need the most recent book is if you need to do practice problems from it. </p>
<p>“From my experience, in social science classes, a lot of the material that shows up on midterms and finals come from lecture (unless stated otherwise of course)”</p>
<p>Truth. Or discussion, if it does come from a textbook, because GSIs are anal about reviewing readings. Which is good for the slacker who doesn’t read, ever (i.e. me.)</p>
<p>Bump. I’m taking Psych 1 (w/ Shimamura) next Spring. The bookstore lists the 3rd edition of Gazzaniga’s “Psychological Science” but the 2nd edition is so much cheaper (seriously… $83 compared to about $3). Do we need the latest edition of the textbook?</p>
<p>Try finding the relevant book on DC++. Worth a shot. I found Stewart for Math 53.</p>
<p>For math 53 I used the e-book which had the same problem numbering as the berkeley edition and I studied out of an older edition book because its so much easier to flip between pages of the book. Then scroll back 200 pages or so on a computer. </p>
<p>For physics 7A, I used the older edition which was actually more helpful than the Berkeley one since it was cheaper and my professor got problems that book and put them on the midterms.</p>
<p>who was your physics 7a prof?</p>
<p>for Physics 7A (and 7B), you can access the ebook online if you already have mastering physics.</p>