i had to photocopy about 200 pages of a book because i didn't want to go buy the thing.
russian 250 = russian culture from 1900 and earlier
russian 251 = russian culture from 1900 to the present
you can take them out of order, but they're supposed to be companion courses, not identical courses
so if you take one of them, and then take the other one, most of the quizes and assignments are the same. but the professor knows this, and if you're taking both classes, he makes you do different assignments than the online quizes.
the online quizes are a joke. you don't have to open the books to get 100% on all of them. the exact same tests are up in a "self test" form on the site, so if you open one of those, you can click the answers there to see which is right, and then answer accordingly on the actual test. you don't even have to read the questions.
since i did all those quizes last year in russian 250, i don't get credit for them this year. i have to read chapters 2-11 in a really boring, badly written book (which is pretty much the same information in the other books we have for class, just arranged a little differently) and i have to outline each of those chapters, write an 8-questioned multiple choice quiz, and make a list of terms...fucking lame.
oh, i still have to do all the other regular assignments for the class, which involves reading half the normal reading. so basically, i do about twice as much work as i would have had to if i had been smart and only taken one of the classes.