Reading Textbook Chapters before/after Lectures (1 Viewer)

[mreditor16]

So, these are my thoughts -

I am increasingly tempted towards going into lectures with an open mind, trying to absorb during the lecture, then going home and going through the textbook, then going through the lecture slides and notes with the gained knowledge from the textbook at the back of my mind, and then doing hw and tutorial stuff on these content for next week - but I'm not 100% sure, because some people (both students and academics) have emphasised reading the relevant textbook chapters before going into said lecture.

so I am conflicted LOL, what to do? It worked well for accounting and management last week, but I don't know how it will go long-term.

FYI I am doing Actuarial / Commerce and am doing MATH1151, ACCT1501, ECON1501, MGMT1001 this semester

thanks

 

[nerdasdasd]

I read my lec notes , if I don't get it, then I grab the textbook

The textbook sometimes is an overload of information for me

 

[Carrotsticks]

It works well with more basic conceptual things but when it comes to the nitty gritty details, you might like to read ahead to have a rough idea beforehand.

In other words, it's okay for the beginning of the semester but won't be as effective later.

 

[mreditor16]

Bump!

 

[mreditor16]

Bump!

 

[VBN2470]

ACCT1501: Textbook is useless, go into the lectures, absorb/learn everything you can, go home, read over lecture notes and try to understand as much as possible, if still hard, then use Google/YouTube, if you still don't get it, ask your tutors in your tutorials. Do all your tutorial homework sets and do lots of past papers, which is very important too, it will help you understand most relevant content and they rehash a lot of questions from past finals for your mid-sem exams/final exam.

ECON1101: Textbook is useful, since it covers more detail of concepts, utilising pretty solid examples so it helps to read the book before attending lectures.

MGMT1001: Textbook is useless, lectures are useless, tutorials are useless, the whole course is useless. Just get really good exam notes off someone and BS everything you can, incorporating all the concepts you learn in this dumbass course. Should be enough to get 75+ overall.

MATH1151: The whole Course Pack will save your life, can study before or after attending your lecture, it doesn't matter, just make sure you try to understand everything to the best of your ability and if your stuck use Google/YouTube/Echo360 Lecture Recordings to clarify concepts. Do all the given past papers (time yourself), and you're pretty much set for a mid-high HD.

In the end, do what suits you, but is OK to experiment around and see what happens. If you study the way you study now and get HD's in most of your courses, then just stick to that, if not, then maybe consider changing it around a bit to see if it makes anything better. Hope it helps

 

[omni16]

ACCT1501: Textbook is useless, go into the lectures, absorb/learn everything you can, go home, read over lecture notes and try to understand as much as possible, if still hard, then use Google/YouTube, if you still don't get it, ask your tutors in your tutorials. Do all your tutorial homework sets and do lots of past papers, which is very important too, it will help you understand most relevant content and they rehash a lot of questions from past finals for your mid-sem exams/final exam.

ECON1101: Textbook is useful, since it covers more detail of concepts, utilising pretty solid examples so it helps to read the book before attending lectures.

MGMT1001: Textbook is useless, lectures are useless, tutorials are useless, the whole course is useless. Just get really good exam notes off someone and BS everything you can, incorporating all the concepts you learn in this dumbass course. Should be enough to get 75+ overall.

MATH1151: The whole Course Pack will save your life, can study before or after attending your lecture, it doesn't matter, just make sure you try to understand everything to the best of your ability and if your stuck use Google/YouTube/Echo360 Lecture Recordings to clarify concepts. Do all the given past papers (time yourself), and you're pretty much set for a mid-high HD.

In the end, do what suits you, but is OK to experiment around and see what happens. If you study the way you study now and get HD's in most of your courses, then just stick to that, if not, then maybe consider changing it around a bit to see if it makes anything better. Hope it helps

Hi VBN, I wanted to ask you about MATLAB. We have I think 2 quizzes due next friday and I haven't even started learning it. Does it take a long time to learn or is it difficult to learn? It says in the outline its recommended that we go to the computing labs to do the quizzes since MATLAB is available there but on moodle there are instructions to download MATLAB on your laptop. Was wondering how you went about all this?

Sorry to derail your thread mreditor but I think this might help you too!

 

[VBN2470]

Hi VBN, I wanted to ask you about MATLAB. We have I think 2 quizzes due next friday and I haven't even started learning it. Does it take a long time to learn or is it difficult to learn? It says in the outline its recommended that we go to the computing labs to do the quizzes since MATLAB is available there but on moodle there are instructions to download MATLAB on your laptop. Was wondering how you went about all this?

Sorry to derail your thread mreditor but I think this might help you too!

OK, so you will have 6 mini-quizzes regarding MATLAB and you actually don't have to learn MATLAB package properly at all. They are really simple and you will be given multiple attempts (I think 5) for each quiz. There should be self-paced lessons via Moodle and you can use that to learn basics of some of the topics they cover, but otherwise you can go to the labs, and because the MATLAB software is actually available on their computers, you can copy-paste the quiz questions onto MATLAB and get the answer through that. If you want to learn it well to some level, you can learn the content too and it won't take too long to learn. Remember, these quizzes are really simple and worth 1% each, and something like the best 4 (or 5) count, (you have check exact details about assessment weightings) so you should be getting full marks on these quizzes.

You will have an 8% MATLAB Computing Test in Week 10, and for that you will be given a sample MATLAB test with solutions, so you will only need to memorise the solutions to each question since they copy these questions for your actual test, but just with different inputs. You should do your best to get 20/20 in this assessment (which most people do), since it is fairly straightforward with the given sample test. You can always torrent a copy of the MATLAB software (latest one preferred), so that you can do the quizzes at home (w/out actually needing to go the computer labs) and study for actual MATLAB test at home, which is 10x easier than going to the labs just to copy down solutions and memorise them etc.

If you have any other questions, feel free to ask me

 

[OzKo]

It works well with more basic conceptual things but when it comes to the nitty gritty details, you might like to read ahead to have a rough idea beforehand.

In other words, it's okay for the beginning of the semester but won't be as effective later.

Yeah, I agree with this.

Reading ahead gives you a good idea of what's going to happen ahead of time, so there's less chance you will be confused during the lecture. Better to be confused beforehand, and have the 'Ahh!!' moment in the lecture rather than the other way round.

A textbook is usually a good supplement for doing work afterwards as well.

So to answer the original question, use it before and after the lecture if possible.

 

[mreditor16]

VBN2470, you are an absolute gem! Absolutely priceless advice, especially when giving them out to actuarial students. Cant thank you enough, especially (in this case) your two posts above. Wish I could give you boundless rep!

By the way, just letting you know that Motta and co have completely changed ECON1101 such that playing a new video game they have made is part of the course content (and contributes to marks) and more importantly, an electronic version of a textbook Motta and co have written up is found within the game and used as the course's prescribed textbook. Therefore, Principles of Microeconomics 3ED is now longer used as part of the course at all.

Also, MATLAB can be downloaded by students for personal use on their own devices by following their instructions here - https://www.google.com.au/?gws_rd=ssl#q=unsw+matlab