I took 100B during the Winter 2015 quarter. Honestly, if any review tells you that you shouldn't go to lecture, then you should ignore it. Bjork may have been a little off during her lectures that quarter but it was still important to go and listen to what material was important to review.

That being said, getting an A requires work and diligence. You don't necessarily need to pull all-nighters studying for the exams in this course. In fact, that would be detrimental to your studying. Make sure to read the book if you need clarification on some concepts, and if it still doesn't make sense, go to the TA's office hours. I'd also recommend looking into AAP Peer Learning Sessions for extra help. They are amazing.

For the exams, I mostly did practice exams provided by the TA's and my Peer Learning Facilitator, and re-read the assigned chapters in the book (sort of more skimming than actual reading). It's more important to tie all these concepts together and really understand how they apply to Psychological Research. Memorizing won't do much because you need to look at hypothetical experiments on the exam and sort of know what would be the best way to conduct them, as well as being able to identify what type of experiments they are.

As for the papers, just make sure you format your paper as close to APA as possible, and write as much detail down as possible. Get to your know TA respectfully. They will be your helping hand the entire way (and they will be grading your papers). Also it is good to be a polite participant during sections to show that you are engaged in the material.

With these guidelines, I received an A in the course (unexpectedly), and I guess I just enjoyed the course a lot that I didn't realize I put in a lot of work in the end. I did have to stay up until 4am for my first paper, but for the last final paper it took me about 3 days of 3~5 hours increments to finish. My page totaled to about 27 pages, which is considered a very long paper. But hey, you do you. I know a lot of people who got really high scores on their paper just wrote tons of detail about their experiment.

Good luck with the course!
(And don't worry too, too much, just make sure to stay on top of your shit from the very beginning!)

took psych 100b this past winter (W15), so i thought id write a review for people who are scared of taking the class. its really not as hard as everyone makes it out to be. ill start off by saying you do not need to go to lecture. professor bjork although super nice, and well meaning tends to talk in circles which can make the lecture super tedious to listen to, plus all the information in the class you learn in psych 100a, and if you dont get it, read the book it breaks everything down pretty clearly for you. she gives you a practice exam before the midterm and final which you should do as i swear she takes 2 or 3 questions right off of it and puts it on the test. the final is non culmaltive so thats cool too, even though theres really not much information to teach (there were only like 6 lecturers). the midterm and final counted for 60% of the overall grade. the midterm and final are both 40 questions and are pretty straightforward, most of the test is based around example experiments and then you describe aspects of it (whats the depenedent variable, whats the problem with the experiment, etc)

the other 40% of your grade is from your lab section. youre graded against the people in your lab section so even if you end up with a 60 on each paper, if the average is a 50 youre doing great. just revise and revise as much as you can, ask your friends to look over it, and see if you can find some previous examples you can use as a model, thats what i did and it was helpful.

overall the class wasnt too bad i got an A without much studying for the midterm and final. there is a lot of work for the final paper, but if you stay on top of it and dont leave it for the last minute its not bad at all. they do a good job of requiring you to write sections of the final paper before the final one is due so that by the time you have to turn in your final submission you only have to write the results, discussion, and abstract.

Well, I guess it takes almost a year to update a new review. For psych 100B, I have always tried to postpone taking the class until I cannot anymore. I just took psych100B with Prof Bjork in 2014 Winter. We learned all materials in only 6 weeks (no classes in 2 weeks and exams in 2 weeks). I am not sure if this will be the same for next year.

While I did enjoy the lecture, I found the professor liked to talk in circles sometimes (maybe treat it as review?). Also, pay attention to the pre-lecture questions! This quarter we were given pretests every lecture. While this were NOT graded, some of the questions actually APPEARED in the final (I guess 5 to 6 questions? Only 40 questions in total)

Another tip. Do the extra credits! Each extra credit is worth 1.25%, which is a lot!

As for lab, my only advice is revising as many time as you can. And don't get frustrated if you get a 60-ish as your raw score because it was totally curved based on other students in your lab.

In brief, the class was not as hard as I expected.

Infamous creator of Psych 100B!

Anyway, I'm a transfer student who took her class and heard of all the rumors about how horrible this course is. This could not be further from the truth. This class just requires a little more work - especially in the lab portion.

Grade consist of 60% lecture and 40% lab.

Lecture: Midterm 30% + Final 30%. In order to do well in her tests, you need to attend her lectures and pay attention. Most of her questions involve you applying concepts to realistic experiments. You need to be able to take apart the experiment and identify all components. The tests are 40 questions each and less than 5 questions are on the book on things she tells you she has no time to go over in lecture.

Lab: 10% participation, 15% quizzes, 75% assignments.

Participation = show up every time.

Quizzes: 3 questions each, and they tell you ahead of time. Pretty easy, just review the lecture notes from the more recent lecture.

Assignments: You gotta write up an experiment APA format. Seems really hard, but they hold your hand through every step, gradually building up so it's not hard, just tedious.

Advice: Go to every lecture, go to office hours and talk to TA/professor about how to best approach your experiment.

Grades are curved by lab, so don't worry if you get 60/100. At the same time, don't lose points for stupid APA errors, they take away points for very stupid things.

I personally didn't like Bjork as a lecturer. I always felt like she talked in circles and she didn't understand what people were asking whenever we did end up asking questions. I think the more important part of 100B is who you end up getting as your TA because they determine your section grade. The two exams for the lecture aren't difficult, but it's about how you interpret the wording.

Prof. Bjork was a good professor. Lectures were 2 hours long but only 1 day a week. The most difficult part of the class is that the final exam is during week 10 and the paper is due Monday of finals week. Primarily focus on the lectures to prepare for both the final and midterm. The final was harder than the midterm and was cumulative.
Grade: A

Dr. Bjork is an excellent professor. I was so scared of Psych 100B but ended up finding it much easier than expected. I hated Psych 100A, but Psych 100B was much less intense (for me). It definitely isn't EASY, but FOCUS on the lecture material. Two questions from the textbook each exam. Weigh it, skim the bolded terms, but don't spend much time reading. Just memorize your lecture notes and you are good to go!!

Bjork's passion of psychology is inspiring and motivating. I LOVE that Prof. Bjork is very diligent about controlling cheating. She has the TA's attend the exams discouraged cheating (great). Don't even try to cheat!! You won't be able to!!

I actually liked her policy that no question's are allowed during the exam. It makes it FAIR and does not allow any unfair advantages. It also prevents people from asking questions as "distractors" so their friends can cheat.

The only cheating problem existed in the quizzes. All of the quizzes were the same, so people in later sections could get all the answer's from people in earlier sections.

Her teaching style is great too. She gives relatable examples that makes the material easy to understand. I have learned so much in the course and wish I could take another class with Dr. Bjork!

Last word of advice, RECORD THE LECTURES AND LISTEN TO THEM AGAIN!! That's how you will ace the exams!! And re-copy your lecture notes!!

this class is too easy

I had Bjork for the Spring 2011 quarter and am a psychobiology pre-health major.

Psych 100B is hard for us science majors because as opposed to being forced to study pages and pages of notes or even the whole textbook (like in your LS courses), we are reduced to studying 3 pages or less of notes for each midterm. In theory, this would create a ceiling effect, since there simply isn't enough material to study. So to compensate for this they throw in questions that require the knowledge of specific details or characteristics of the general concepts presented in class which you won't be aware of unless you go to office hours and troll the discussion board etc. (oh, and the concepts presented in class are VERY general, so rewriting your lecture notes 10x over/podcasting is a WASTE OF TIME (you'll understand what I mean when you take the course--better to google search every concept and spend your time studying that way) So when it comes test time it's not really a matter of how much you studied for the test, it's a matter of how lucky you are at guessing on exams.

Content-wise, I agree with the previous reviews that a lot of this stuff is really common sense. Heck, most of psychology is common sense which is why it's an 'easy' major, I suppose. You will learn things such as why you use control groups, what an independent variable is, etc... things that are seriously at the middle school level. Psychological research must be the most basic form of research-- compared to basic science research, it is a joke.

In discussion section the TA's baby you through every single concept, and these sections were a ridiculous waste of time-- 4 hours a week and all you end up doing is go around the room reading out of the workbook and/or completing worksheets out of the workbook.

SO ANYWAYS, TO GET TO THE MORE PRACTICAL STUFF:

I ended up with an A- in the class. Expecting it? Most definitely not. Happy with it? Most definitely yes.

As is said previously:
Lecture= 60% of your grade (30% each midterm for a total of 2 midterms)
Section= 40% of your grade (composed of 5 quizzes, a method section, group project proposal, first submission, and final submission).

The class average on the two midterms were 33/40 and ~32/40; I scored 33/40, 33/40: at the B- range. However, I'm pretty sure I set the curve in my discussion section (if you're a psychobio premed/health major you should be able to do this easily since you compete only against the people in your section-like 20 people- for your discussion grade. What this means is that 3-4 people in every section get A's, so if you have 10 premeds in your section then tough luck for you).
My TA told me that Bjork told them to grade harsh enough so that the average is ~D+/C- (to create a curve)
Here are my discussion stats:
Quizzes: 12/15 (don't know what average was)
Method: 90/100 (2.5 std above avg)
Project proposal: 73/100 (0.6 std above avg)
First submission: 101/100 (they award bonus points if you have good prose and fluidity in your research paper)
Final submission: probably 100+/100 since I didn't have many corrections to make on my first submission.

I didn't spend that much time on my paper, maybe 1-2 days. You learn to bs pretty well after having taken LS1 and LS2 labs.

So apparently your discussion section grade can pull you from a grade of a B- to an A-. Have hope, premeds!

I was scared to take this class because everyone says it's so competitive, and I guess to an extent that's true.

But remember that the lecture portion is 60% of your grade, so that helps out a lot.

I actually loved going to her class. Lecture is only once a week. I ended up with an A, and it honestly is not that hard to do so.

Here's what I did and it totally helped. I hand wrote notes in class (btw always sit in the front!!!), then the next day, I relistened to her lecture and wrote over those original notes in a different pen color, then I would rewwrite all my notes very neatly in several different colors in an entirely new notebook. This helped me a lot. A lot of times, I would be relistening to lecures and I noticed sometimes things were left a little ambiguous. Often, you will find those are the things that will be on the exam. So it's up to you to catch those unclear concepts.

So yes, relistening to lectures helps. The lab quizzes are pretty easy if you do that.

The group project is a lot of work, but also isn't at the same time. Leave yourself 2 days of JUST editing though (for the final draft). It's really easy to make minute APA errors that could cost you a couple of points. The paper really isn't that bad. I didn't try very hard on the first submission and scored a little below average- which made me need to work a lot harder on the final draft. So my advice, put in the time for the first submission- you get GREAT feedback.

Also, I had the BEST TA ever. But a lot of people I talked to liked their TA's. So don't worry about that. You can't really control it anyway!

Good luck. This class isn't that bad at all.

Like everyone says, the tests are tricky, but I promise you, if you take diligent notes, you'll do fine. The concepts are simple, just make sure you really understand them!