<p>Depends on the professor. For some professors I never even bought the book and still did well in the class. If you know you probably won’t open the book why waste the money? If you suddenly have motivation to read the book you can always buy it mid-semester or whenever.</p>
<p>However, if I never read the book for my history class last semester I wouldn’t have learned anything. The class was really not that great and the lectures really weren’t that helpful. Some teachers are so talented and knowledgeable about what they do that they never even have to mention a textbook; but some students still need more than just a lecture. Sometimes the professor’s teaching methods won’t make sense or their lectures aren’t very clear so that’s when textbooks are helpful.</p>
<p>In fact I try to avoid having teachers that teach directly from the textbook. Of course it’s different when you’re in a math, science, or foreign language class where you have so much work to do in the book, but with my other classes I would hope a college professor would be able to do more than just teach the textbook page by page.</p>
<p>^^Again, it really does depend on the professor. If your professor gives lectures based on the book, then there’s no reason you shouldn’t do fine as long as you pay attention and take good notes.</p>
<p>Personally I do better when the teacher lectures and doesn’t make us just read a bunch of chapters out of the book.</p>
<p>Paying attention in class is far more important. You are rarely tested on an entire book; paying attention lets you know what is important to the teacher, hence to you. Reading the book is mainly helpful as a supplement to lectures, as the book may give examples or go more in depth in explaining concepts. Also, it is useful to read certain chapters before they are lectured on so that you know which questions to ask during lecture (assuming they are not answered there either).</p>
<p>It really does depend on the class. I’ve had classes where I pretty much wasted the $100 on the book, and others where it really didn’t matter if I went to class or not because I did all the learning from the book. </p>
<p>So, it’s kind of something you have to figure out for yourself in your different classes.</p>
<p>It really depends on the professor. Some times you can learn a lot from the classes themselves because they either lecture well or tell you upfront what material is most important.</p>
<p>If you’re in a class where the professor “can’t teach”, reading the textbook on your own can be a real benefit.</p>
<p>Your best bet is to do both or one of the two in conjunction with regular study groups.</p>
<p>it depends on the professor. I’ve had professors that required both reading the textbook and paying attention to lecture (my History professor last summer) and professors that hardly used the book at all and just based quizzes and tests off of lecture materials.</p>
<p>Paying attention, 100%.
Of course, as mentioned previously, you need to do both.</p>