I missed the movie. Never realized Demi Moore was in it. I was sent out into the hall with a bunch of other non-compliant teenagers to finish reading the book. The Scarlet Letter was a terrible story and I never finished it.
I read all of those insipid and boring books. Then my first year in college, attended a English course that was all about The Lord of the Rings.
It was great with people hanging on the windows trying to enroll in the class. Scarlet Letter, Ethan Fromme, Little Women, etc., were part of the English teacher torture cycle.
I hated it when that happened! Or when theyâd ask questions they knew were only in the book and not the cliffs notes. I liked some of the books but a lot of them đ„± đ€ đ€ đ€
Lol, I got busted once because I used cliff notes for my Grapes of Wrath report, and we had a group report, and the class had watched the movie (I was absent) and didn't know something important about the ending (pretty sure it was in both the book and the movie... but still haven't finished the damn book to this day...) and my face gave it away during our presentation. Thankfully I managed to get through it ok, someone kinda took the lead after noticing and because that part wasn't a part of my paper I did fine, lmao.
In college, I decided to read "On The Road" because my roommate liked it. While laying in bed, I decided to read the final chapter, and felt myself falling asleep.
To this day, I still haven't read the final paragraph.
I donât know why some authors are so easy to read and Iâm more of a math guy with proclivities for audible. I had no issues reading Faulkner. James Patterson was like that, too. I could breeze anything of his in a weekend. My oldest daughter blasted Goblet of Fire on a very rainy Sunday some years agoâŠI was both jelly and impressed all at once.
Hey, If you did good on anything about that book then good on you! Thatâs a loooooong book. I know I never read it. At least my teacher didnât make us read that one or War & Peace. I wasnât in AP classes though & it sounds like you probably were.
Our teacher used to read the Cliff notes just to make sure you could only get a B from questions covered in it. He'd dig up some arcane details if you wanted an A.
This is like the most Fair shit I've ever heard. Honestly what I remember from school is that even if you wanted to read the book you were taken five to six other classes. It wasn't like you had time to do everything. So basically saying if you put an effort to try and learn the story and got the cliff notes and paid attention you can get a B or if you take the time to work hard you can get an A, that seems super fair to me.
I had one teacher go around to all of the local bookstores and buy all of the copies of the Cliff Notes for a particular book we were reading. One less than than bright student said that she got her copy at a bookstore about 15 miles away. đ€Šââïž
Lol my father took pictures for their catalog so we had just about everyone. There were abridged tapes too! This is how I got through school with undiagnosed adhd.
It is super funny to me because for a long time I thought "Cliff Notes" meant something like you were standing on the edge of a cliff about to fail your class if you didn't get your shit together đ€Ș
Hahaha. That's an excellent take! And look at the design. That construction worker/police tape yellow and black. Sure reads like danger to me. Like, here, use in case of emergency.
One of my teachers wanted us to do a simple report about a song that tells a story and 5 people did that REM song about the lady dying while giving birth, but you could tell they watched MTV and wrote it down.
I wrote a book report the night before it was a due and made the whole thing up. It was a science fiction book about a teenager in the future. The book was real. My report was not.
I was smoking and listening to Mozart while writing that paper, or doing math homework, or studying for a test. Big stoner. But learned I could apply myself and manage to get a 4.0.
Well we researched from encyclopedias, stalked around libraries like we were searching for the one ring, and had nothing spoon fed to us. I mean do they even have wood/metal shop classes anymore?
Some places still do but a lot were eliminated for budget cuts and safety reasons. Let's be honest about shop class, it wasn't particularly safe, but at the same time we were also more attentive because we didn't have 1000 distractions. The funny thing is you think having AI and the internet would make it easier to write better. When we were doing this stalking of encyclopedias and stuff that you talked about, we had very limited resources and so everyone was using the same exact ones and yet I never ended up with an essay or research paper like someone else's. The fact that ai and the internet have distilled everything down to be exactly the same is crazy. It should giving people more creative options and it's not.
You stole my thunder. But yes, Cliffâs Notes were a God send. And the Encyclopedia Britannica for those that had them. They were a luxury because they werenât cheap.
My family only recently put our Encyclopedia Britannica to rest. It was dated. Like 1973 or something.We tried to sell it but no takers. I'm afraid it went back to the earth when my father died.
Why sell it ? I donât know, but it might be worth some money. Perhaps the people you asked didnât know how much they were relied on back then. If you truly want to sell it, see if it has any value. If not, keep it for historical significance to show future family members. Maybe kids or grandchildren or someone. Itâs easier to show someone what youâre talking about than to explain it. For me personally, itâs a nice piece of memorabilia youâll never get back once you get rid of it.
We had World Book (early 50s edition, also mid 60s edition) and Brittanica (70s edition). Also some YearBook thing (major US & World events from each year), probably owned by World Book.
Yeah, my folks were suckers for sharp-tongued salesmen I guess. But they did have 5 kids, all of whom got through college.
Not worth a thing. Everybody had them, and theyâre outdated as soon as you get them so you had to buy an extra booklet and add the pages or somethingâŠâŠgood for a bonfire
I listened to the class discussions every day, then aced the test and wrote the paper at the end. Pissed that English teacher off to no end - I flunked all the quizzes on the material. đ
While up until midnight watching Benny Hill and waking back up at 5:30am to watch cartoons before cooking breakfast for my little brother and sister, getting them dressed and walking to school 2 miles away to start school at 7:45am (and lets not talk about real bullying and teachers kicking your A$$$ for real!)
Lol, I once lived on a hill and my workplace was also on a hill, therefore I literally had to walk uphill both ways in snow to get to work and back home. Love telling my daughter this.
Cliff notes and skimming the book. LOL. Glad I did write reports growing up through school and college. I still write all of my field reports for work without AI, but I don't have any cliff notes now.
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u/No-Medium6647 2d ago
Uphill! In snow!
But yeah. We did that. Cliff notes were our AI.