It really depends what kinda school you're in.

In university, the professors can only tell you
so much within one hour. Most of the learning
comes from you and your book. Now, as far as the
sciences are concerned, you can't just read--You
actually have to do stuff. That's what the
exercises/problems are for. Unfortunately, the
profs usually assign about 30 hours worth of
questions, and expect you to do it in 5 minutes.
That's just insane.
e.g., the last class I took, the prof said
something like this: the assignments are not to
be handed in. However, you *should* do'm cause
the exam is gonna consist of some of the
questions. Therefore, if you do'm, then you can
do well on the exam.

Of course, he decided to assign about 20 problems
every week. The little problem is that this is
math, so every problem will take about 3 hours to
finish (that's if you're really lucky).

I really screwed up on the course.

OTOH, in anything less than that level, the
uhh... teachers... tell you the same stupid
repetitive stuff over and over and over and
over... there's no challenge. Especially in math,
that is. I mean, what's the point of doing
the same kinda question 100 times? 5 times is way
more than enough. The whole point of homework is
to learn stuff, not just do the same boring stuff
over and over and over and over and over...

I won't bother to comment on any other subject.

oh, and sorry if this post is unreadable--stupid
text forms aren't supported too great in
lynx--grin