too many reading assignments

[s1lver]

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This is for a History 101 class (Asia):

* Main textbook has 552 pages and we will cover 3 chapters every week (somewhere around 50+ pages every week).
* 4 extra books (autobiography, compilation of selected writings, etc.) that we have to finish reading every month (one per month this semester) because they will be on chapter tests. The "shortest" book has 425 pages.


Should I just skip/skim the reading assignments and just pay attention and take good notes in class? Any tips?

 

[Everglide]

Depends on if the reading factors into your grade (tests, quizzes, etc). From personal experience reading is an absolute must in history classes. It's a lot different from a science class "reading" and it sounds like your reading is fairly light if you only have 50+ pages a week and a book per month. Read intensively until you figure out what your prof wants to take from the reading then skim later if you feel it is safe to do so.

 

[Drrrrrr. Celty]

history is a very simple subject.. well at least for me..
if you can go to course-notes.com
you might be able to find your book and get a outline..
from there you can just skim..

more or less if you have a good teacher you wont even have to study that much..
history is very easy to understand when spoken..

 

[MilkmanAl]

It's a 100-level history class. If it's hard, I will be very, very surprised.

 

[mwall003]

doesn't sound like a 101 class to me. Are you a history major or minor? If not you must be taking it for a gened, I'd drop it and find one that interests you more and perhaps may have less reading...

 

[MilkmanAl]

I don't think that sounds like a lot of reading, honestly. Most of my classes like that assigned readings and then thoroughly discussed the parts that actually mattered in class. In other words, you don't actually have to do any of the reading. You probably don't even need to buy the books unless you just want to.

 

[BlueElmo]

That's a lot of reading, but I never read for History anyways.

 

[FloatOn]

I would skim at first and take it from there. I have only taken one history class in college. I did all of the readings at first, but that routine quickly died to preserve my sanity.

 

[sm640739]

Depends on if the reading factors into your grade (tests, quizzes, etc). From personal experience reading is an absolute must in history classes. It's a lot different from a science class "reading" and it sounds like your reading is fairly light if you only have 50+ pages a week and a book per month. Read intensively until you figure out what your prof wants to take from the reading then skim later if you feel it is safe to do so.

👍
Read intensively until you know how the professor runs his/her class - you'll find this out sometime right around, or after, the first exam.

It really depends on the professor more than anything. I had an upper-level political science course on Mid East Politics that had 3 "assigned" texts. The success strategy for that class ended up being taking verbatim notes from the professor's lecture - like exactly, word for word, what he said - and then regurgitating that info, in his words, on his exams. If you used info from the book, even if it was factual, it was not sufficient...you needed his words. He's probably an exception to the norm, but who knows...