Apologia General Science-do I need CDs/DVDs too?

The teacher’s manual has all the test answers.  and study guide answers.  If you don’t plan on giving the tests, it’s not absolutely necessary.  I wouldn’t try to grade the tests without it.  You don’t need the audio CD’s unless you want your child to listen to them instead of the text.  The multimedia DVD is very nice, however.  It’s not an absolute essential, but there are demonstrations and graphics on those that we like very much–I always get that to go with our text.

This book is a traditional text.  It’s pretty readable, but it’s still a text.  I sort of like to use the tests with the Apologia book.  It gives me an idea of what, exactly, my child actually got out of the text reading.  Narration with these is possible, but the text, like many textbooks, is fact-dense and IMO sort of hard to really narrate well.  Doing the study guides and/or the tests as a written assignment was really helpful to me.  I do make my kids do the high-school level tests, since I want them to get used to the idea before they hit college biology, lol, but the general science I just use one or the other as a gauge to what the child picked up and what I need to make sure they understand before we move on.