Physics is like SCUBA diving -- it requires participation and practice and learning from your own errors.. There simply is no other way to learn Physics. Diligence with the homework will make the exams easy but ignoring the homework will make the exams impossible! You must do the homework--just to survive. Solutions will be posted on the world wide web or the internet. Homework will not be turned in and graded; this requires great maturity and responsibility on your part! Homework is vital in Physics!!!! I can not stress that too much. Physics is like SCUBA diving -- it requires participation and practice and learning from your own errors. You may be able to understand the Civil War by listening to lectures. But you can not successfully learn to SCUBA dive only by listening to lectures -- you have to get wet! Physics, too, requires that you "get wet", that you get your hands messy in the mire of homework problems. Most of the exams will not be strikingly different from the homework. You must do the homework -- just to survive! I love to watch old Jacque Cousteau specials on television. Cousteau makes scuba diving look so easy (after all, he invented scuba diving!). But I would (literally!) die if I tried to scuba dive. Learning how to scuba dive is not the same thing as watching Cousteau while he scuba dives! Homework is like that. You have to do the homework yourself! A common and reasonable "rule of thumb" for any three-semester-hour course is that you must put in six to nine hours a week reading the material and thinking about and working on and answering the homework. It is probably not possible to survive (or pass) this course with a smaller time committment.