<p>what are your thoughts on sparknotes and not reading the book?</p>
<p>I used the sparknotes when I had to write paper over The Death of a Salesman in Comp 1 or 2 (I can't remember which) and got an A. I don't see why they would be a problem.</p>
<p>Well I feel kinda bad...I used it for all my papers (like 6) in English III AP. I got like an A on all the papers practically. I'm a good BSer with good word choice (SAT Essay: 12). I just don't want to go into English IV AP with this, but the thing is if I can get away with it, why not? I mean I feel bad, but I get over it usually. </p>
<p>I don't want this to travel into college (might be different than AP), but again, I don't want to waste my time if I don't have to.</p>
<p>Be careful though; I can't remember if it was Sparksnotes or Coles Notes, but my ELA teacher was telling the class how the notes for the book "Heart of Darkness" were completely wrong, and talked about things that were never mentioned in the book. </p>
<p>I personally haven't used Sparknotes before, so I can't comment on your question.</p>
<p>Books suck, thogh I never read a full book in HS and still had a 95% english average.. I was in Honors english also. HS tends to be so drasticly easy that the answers on tests are so common sense, thats there no point it reading.</p>
<p>my teacher uses this website that will check your essay with online stuff...so i cant...</p>
<p>but for tests, thats another thing. then again if i have almost any interest in the book i will read it.</p>
<p>I did it this year for The Great Gatsby..felt kind of guilty because I had such an awesome English teacher this year and I thought I wasn't being appreciative enough..I got a 95 on the essay I wrote examining one of Fitzgerald's rhetorical choices using SparkNotes, though, so it worked out alright. :)</p>
<p>I have mixed thoughts on Sparknotes. Sometimes if a book I'm reading is especially difficult, or if I'm not really putting my full attention into it, I'll go over the Sparknotes after to kind of get reinforce ideas and characters. I never use Sparknotes in place of reading, however. Not for moral reasons, mainly just because I love to read.</p>
<p>i only use them to understand the book- the scarlet letter was really boring, so I used sparknotes alot when I was reading it</p>
<p>I only use Sparknotes when cramming or when a book/poem is in some variant of Middle English. I <em>hate</em> Middle English.</p>
<p>I use pinkmonkey.com</p>
<p>I've gotten A's on everything since 7th grade</p>
<p>But if pinkmonkey doesn't have the book then I resort to using sparknotes.</p>
<p>I hate reading.....it is such a waste of time!!!</p>
<p>^ i prefer pinkmonkey too</p>
<p>If the book is ok I'll read it and then use sparknotes to review. But if I'm short on time ( ex: have math test the enext day or something more important) I'll definitely use spark notes.</p>
<p>Well the odd thing is, I usually don't use Sparknotes for the devices and things like that, but rather only for the summary of the book, and from there I concoct my own ideas.</p>
<p>i used sparknotes every opprotunity I had starting in 7th or 8th grade. To be honest, it works best if you read the book AND the sparknotes. Especially with something like shakespeare.</p>
<p>i use BOOKWOLF... and google =]</p>
<p>I don't care the brand, but the idea of using something else</p>
<p>My english teacher gave us a list of sites we can go to at the begining of the year. Sparknotes was one of them I think. I've never used it though.</p>
<p>Only book I ever truly relied on Sparknotes on was Madame Bovary, and that was just for a review. Managed to pull off a 90 on the essay test...so it worked. For me.</p>
<p>I tried to use sparknotes and other things, but you see my teacher for A.P Lit, wanted us to go so in depth that sometimes it was just a waist of ink to print them out. </p>
<p>They we're good when i needed a plot summary, and at times they kinda went indepth... but I think reading the book is way better just incase you have a psycho english teacher</p>