Does it really matter?

[DoctaJay]

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An upper classmen mentor told me that I should get FA now and start annotating it; I think its a good idea, but FA 2008 doesn't come out until January. Will it matter if I get FA 2007?

 

[osli]

I certainly am no authority, but the prevailing advice given here is that it really isn't a big difference. Many people have 2006 and have asked whether they need to get the 2007 or even 2008 version, and the typical response is to just make sure they find the errata listing for their edition and make sure everything is corrected. Since FA went to systems based, they are essentially the same.

I'm sure the primary driver for a new edition each year is to maintain a steady business instead of a high turnover/resale rate of older editions among students.

So if you think you need to get started annotating now (not a bad idea), get whatever is available now.

 

[blz]

make sure you're not annotating it with class notes because your classes make you learn a lot of extra/useless information.

 

[osli]

Ah, good point. Seems like when annotating is given as advice on SDN it is in the context of reading a separate dedicated review source for a subject (i.e., BRS phys or MMRS) and annotating FA with bits of extra information. No way I could annotate FA with my class notes... the pile of notes from first year classes is about 18" thick. Which makes me wonder... will I ever bother looking at a single page in that stack again? When will I just give in and throw them all away?

 

[Anka]

Ah, good point. Seems like when annotating is given as advice on SDN it is in the context of reading a separate dedicated review source for a subject (i.e., BRS phys or MMRS) and annotating FA with bits of extra information. No way I could annotate FA with my class notes... the pile of notes from first year classes is about 18" thick. Which makes me wonder... will I ever bother looking at a single page in that stack again? When will I just give in and throw them all away?

I saved all of mine until the day after I took Step I. It was 5 feet high by the end (LOTS of ppt slides, notes, etc.). Then I threw it away... having not looked at any page of it to study for the step.

Anka

 

[DoctaJay]

Lol, thanks for making that clear because I was totally going to annotate with my class notes 🙂. I'm a 1st year, so I don't think I'll even be able to annotate that much, but I at least want to get a good gist of what is going on. I may wait for the 2008 edition just cause I doubt I'll even get to read FA before x-mas.