Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I bought the whole 3-book set for a Chinese course in college. The book itself has a simple and clean design, making it easy to follow. However, this book is reliant on the Chinese instructor or you're dead in the water. The earlier editions have a CD inside, but the company has since removed the CDs out and you have to go to their website to download the audio to know how to pronounce the words on the chapter. The book has no answer key for your workbook exercises. They don't even provide the answers, the company site said it has to be requested from the school with the proper credentials to even release such information; it forces a dependency on the instructors and makes you unable to correct your own mistakes. If you're studying Chinese on your own, this book isn't best for you. It's only doable if you have someone proficient in Chinese. I've studied other language books with a much more comprehensive package than this.