CW Diogenes without Student Guide?

[In The Great White North]

Has anyone tried to do Diogenes without the Student Guide? Did you use the Essays, Speeches and Models download? Was it helpful? Does it have the models for Chreia also?

Or is it just worth the extra $$ for the Student Guide?

(I'm trying to do Maxim and Chreia with a 9th grader with good writing skills, but no previous CW experience.)

[Mama Lynx]

The Student Guide has the answers in it :) It also has a helpfully laid-out schedule.

We used the Student Guide for Maxim, but rarely used it except for those answers. I did not purchase a student guide for Chreia, and I'm hoping I won't need those answers!

[In The Great White North]

Was the "helpfully laid out schedule" for doing Maxim in one year? If I'm going to do both (like their online course, with 4 weeks of Older Beginners, 13 weeks of Maxim and 13 weeks of Chreia) would it help me at all?

Did you need the answers?