Yes its nice to see if you have done it correctly. As you said to many would use those answers. An they would need there proofs.

Did they not give answers to problems that are odd or even such as answers to problems 1., 3., 5,......?

We get too little work in school and I loan books to try to learn more, but I can't know if I solve the problems correct since I don't have the answers.

Don't you have a learning lab that can help you in school with the answers?

p911

No, they can only give us the answers for the work which is handed out by the school, and it is not many problems they have made for us. I cant go and ask for help with problems which isnt made by our department.

In a lot of text books not even answers for odd questions...

I assume you're a university student? One of the things you'll need to learn for work is that there are no "answers in the back of the book." You have to develop the skill and confidence to do the best you can, without ever knowing what you "should have done". One of the very best classes I ever took, and one in which I learned a lot in spite of a mediocre grade, was taught by a prof who graded only on whether a problem was set up correctly. He never cared about the final answer and gave no extra credit if you got an answer.

But, if you're still at the concrete learning stage, invest in a Schaum's outline.

Yeah some times there are many correct answers I get that. But a lot of times I need to calculate a load, and it is nice to know if I got the right one.

I think he wants to make sure he understand the fundamentals.

The part of education I never understood is that they want you to show your work and don't care if you got the right answer.

In real life its just the opposite. No one cares how you get the job done just as long as it done right!

I don't get paid for showing my customers how I fixed their stuff even if it doesn't work. They pay me to make sure their stuff works and could car less how I do it!

You need to know the fundamentals for that.

Descriptive geometry, Mechanisms and kinematics are some examples.

p911

I think that depends on your specialty, your duties, and your customers. If you do design work for customers, or regulators, like DOE, DOD, NRC, FDA, NIH, and many municipalities/states, you'll often need to be able to go into PDRs without a single "right answer" yet and convince them you're working on the right problems in the right way. You may even run into the famous "90% solution" where a design, done the right way, on the right schedule, to the right budget, will be accepted if it is deemed 90% "right".

I see your point, and accept it for some situations, but I'd never want to work with a design or analysis engineer who couldn't/wouldn't spend enough time figuring out a problem before plugging it in a calculator.

The only problem I see is just having the answers is that one would massage the proofs to get the same answer without actually understanding the reason

The other problem I see with having the answers is that students will often not do dimensional analysis unless forced to do so. Without any answers, you then have to use sketches, FBDs, and dimensional analysis - all good tools an engineer needs.

I agree with Student89; about half of the exercises should have answers. This enables the student to see quickly if he/she is on the right track, or to go back right away and figure out what misconception or error was made. Some of the most effective learning can occur in this way.

It also depends on how the student interacts with the material. Avoid looking up the answers until you have actually done the calculation; only then look for confirmation. I think Student89 wants to use this approach. Best of luck in finding texts that work well.

GA answer, I had a I'll call hi, an instructor in college. He carried his notebook into class and copied out of the notebook.

Later found out that he used this same notebook for the past couple of years. What upset me, is he is spending all of the lab period transcribing what was in his note book onto the Chalk board, and 5 minutes before the lab ends, ....and we copied all his work down in our notebooks, he'll announce, "This isn't right" and erase it all.

He did teach me something very important though of which I'll pass along. Its up to you to get the answer

p911

A good education on its best part should teach sound basics and educate best on principles.

Standard problems are given as a matter of uniformity to all students. That does not mean that, the instructor knows nothing beyond books[ there may be few exceptinal book worm teachers]

The education process will be effective when there exists a tendency-

The teacher goes to level of students and teach and the same way the student attempts to get to the level of what teacher expects.

The student should make use of the class room, should not have reservations to raise and clear his doubts. Many teachers just puts a formality question to the class' Have you all understood ? Any doubts ? " and leaves the hall without looking at students.

On the teacher's part, if more of random objective questions wre raised and answered, it will be great use to students.

One more last word-" All aspects can not be covered by teachers, part are left for experience too"

Have you contacted the publishers directly?

Have you asked a teacher to ask the publishers for you? Formulate a letter, get him to sign it, you send it off to the publisher.)

Have you searched on the web? Maybe someone else has had the same problems....

Hi,

I solved it studying with colleages (discussing method and results) and searching other books/examples in the Web, for example: emule, torrents, google, MIT opencourseware...

If you ask your older colleages about how they did with that course I'm sure they will give you proper advices.

I think it's all about learn about live with it, most of the time in real life you don't have answers for you problems. Think, search, consult, ask...

Best regards

PireX