I read almost all reviews before taking this class and tried to take other lecutres
However, her class was about half empty while the other lecture was full. I decided to take it anyway because I felt I could manage to get an A-, if I worked really hard.
BUT believe me and other reviews, most people (unless exceptionally smart) would not be able to get a good grade in this class.
what can I say next? do NOT take this class with her

She seemed really awesome the first two lectures. She made it seem like the class was going to be relatively easy too. She said we have online reading and demo quizzes but they should be easy since they are open notes!!!! She even gave us all perfects on the first quiz...uhmm however...the quizzes are terrible. Most of the time I couldn't even find the answers in the text, or she would word the question like she was foreign or something and it didn't make any sense. In the demo quizzes, she asked things like, "what is the null hypothesis in this demo?" when there were never any references to anything that had to do with a hypothesis. Some of her questions weren't even in the assigned reading! And her midterms are terrible and don't reflect how much or how hard you studied. I could have taken the midterm on my first day of class and still done just as poorly. The average in my class was something around a D (and she said that's pretty good). I did slightly better on my second midterm but the average was still terrible. The thing that worries me (since I'm still in her class right now) is that she says she doesn't curve anything. If this is true...then most of her class is failing. It's okay if you have some people doing poorly in the class and others better, but if no one in the class (except for like one person) does even slightly exceptional there must be something wrong with the teacher. I feel so terrible writing this because I don't like to talk bad about anybody, but I feel like she really needs to hear this. It is not okay for her class to fail especially since all of them are obviously interested in the subject and are eager to learn about it. I have seen how hard people study for her class but they all do terrible anyway. What kind of reward is it when you get a D on a test which you studied for for days? She actually told us in class that the reason we all did so poorly is because we didnt follow HER study method. Personally, I dont think I need HER study method if my study method is the reason that I got into this school, and got a 3.8 as my first quarter GPA taking some of the hardest classes on campus. But when i tried her study method, I admit, i got a slightly higher score, but I still got like a C- on the second midterm.
Her explanation for why the tests are so difficult and specific is that she wants us to be able to tell our kids things if they ask. But, honestly, if my child asks me why two pine cones are different i'm not going to tell them about gametes and allele frequencies.
Overall, as interesting as this class is, I do not recommend taking this class with this professor. You will get an A with the other one...so dont go through the stress and failure of taking Pires. Her class is really the worst quality class I have taken here at UCLA. Even worse than Pang's Chem 14BL class. It was honestly a waste of my time and money.

WORST PROFESSOR!!!! AVOID COMPLETELY!
I've only been here for two quarters, and she has made my first year experience the worst!
I agree with everyone here except the first person who commented.
COMPLETELY unapproachable! She tries to act like she is cares about her students, but when you try to approach her after lecture she gives you an attitude with a look of annoyance. Her test are extremely difficult with so much information. What makes things worse is that the questions she gives on her test are nothing like the practice study guides she provides; which btw are so stupid. She provides study guides, but reminds you that thats probably only going to be about 50% of what are on the test.
The labs are stupid... bunch of busy work. And she takes questions from the Demos, the ones with the minor details and expects you to know every singly detail about examples from the DEMO and form the book. TA's can be helpful. My TA was Tom, he was awesome, I wish he would've taught the class. But regardless DO NOT TAKE THIS PROFESSOR!!!

Horrible Professor. Very reluctant in answering emails.

hands down quite possibly the worst professor I have ever had, not only during my tenure at UCLA but my entire college career. Not only is she incredibly sloppy, disorganized and scatter brained, often having numerous mistakes and typographical errors on her tests (not minor ones either but there were several occasions where a question just didn't have a right answer or had two correct answers or at times screw ups that changed the nature of the questions). She then demanded an unreasonably high degree of performance from her students and often threw trick questions into the mix. There is a difference between being a hard teacher and being a bad teacher and believe me she is without a doubt the latter. The first midterm had a high of 87% with an abysmal mean of 64%, the second midterm had an even worse high of 84% and a mean of... wait for it…… 56%! As for the final the highest grade was a 90% with the mean being 68% (only one person got the 90%). When in three tests that determine bulk of a class’s grades only ONE student of over 200 is able to get an ‘A’ something is seriously wrong with the professor’s method, not the students study habbits. Even a class made up of the laziest undergrads will still produce a hand full of outliers, but only in a class with terrible instruction and poorly made tests could the results she produced occur. In addition to this the labs for this class were nothing more than tangential busy work that did little to advance an understanding of the material but they were however graded extremely harshly. This is definitely one faculty member who should be working on research rather than teaching. My advice, if the class is offered under another professor take it with him/her, if not wait a semester and try your luck then.

Cool person. Hard class. Lots of memorization. Tests are difficult because the multiple choice questions are worded weird (so it is hard to understand what she is asking).

She's a professor who actually cares about her students. I sent her an e-mail asking for help and she is willing to meet me. Not like some professors who try to get you to do that whole self-teach thing. That's butt when we pay so much to come to school here. Professor Pires is pretty awesome. Her lectures are good too. I'm taking an 8am lecture for LS2 next quarter just so she can be my professor She's pretty good.