This class may have been the most dreadful experience I have had at UCLA so far. As a person who usually understands and loves math, this course completely changed my feelings. His lectures are super boring, very unengaging, and you walk out not knowing a single thing that was said. His homework problems are related to the content taught in lecture (at least what I could understand) and it would be around less than 10 questions due every week. He has 2 midterms and 1 final (all in-person) and they are extremely complicated and questions that deviated a lot from the practices exams and homework's. EXAMS ARE VERY DIFFICULT AND YOU WILL NOT FEEL PREPARED FOR THEM AT ALL. Organic Chem Tutor on YouTube was what saved my grade, you basically have to teach the course yourself. The class average for the final was 64%... . I would not recommend taking this professor at all.

If Haoren Xiong has a million haters, then I am one of them. If he has ten haters, then I am one of them. If he has only one hater then that is me. If Haoren Xiong has no haters, then that means I am no longer on earth. If the world loves Haoren Xiong, then I am against the world. His accent, monotone voice, and lack of explanation in much of his work make lectures terrible, at least they were recorded. 64% avg on the final, DO NOT take Haoren Xiong for 31B

This class should be an Eighth Amendment violation. This class is a Biz Econ major's nightmare. If you take this class after reading all of the negative reviews, do not say that you were not warned.

Xiong is to Math 31B what Ebert is to Math 32A. Xiong's exams deviate so much from our practice material that it is mind boggling. Even though he may have barely gone over it, he assesses squeeze theorem, triangle method (Fall 2024 Final), and induction. In my opinion, he is one of the worst lecturers I have had at UCLA. The only people that succeed in this class are those who have nothing better to do than study for Math 31B, and even then, they struggle. I cannot emphasize this enough: If you care about your GPA, stay away from this guy!

What idiot would take this guy twice??? Oh wait, I think I know the answer to that question.

Really not worth putting yourself through all of this. Much better to take another professor with a less convenient time slot or simply wait for another quarter with better proferssors.

A splendid young chap. He taught me how to write in shakespearean (proof by recursion)
But then strikes the mystery TA, who gave us secret potions (Series Tests)
PS. On the final day Xiong finally takes off his glasses and reveals that he has an evil twin named (REDACTED) who writes the final.

Avoid this professor, take anyone else. In lectures he repeats what the textbook says and talks really slowly. I had to watch recorded lectures in 1.75 X speed to understand. He doesn’t explain how topics connect to each other or why it works. His practice tests don’t reflect what will be on the exam. I studied for hours for each test and still didn’t do well. I asked him what I could do to study better and he told me that if I had actually redone homework problems I would have done better. When I told him that I did fully redo homework problems to study (in an email) he never responded. Before our final he laughed about how easy this test should be but the average was a 62. Don’t take this professor or you will have to spend hours outside of class teaching yourself the entire course.

This professor does not care about his students. I think he actually tries to make students cry during the exams by making them so abstract from the material covered in class. As a person who is normally fantastic at math, I was so frustrated being presented with easy problems in class and then faced with problems that verged on not even being real math during the exams. The man is actually evil and I do not recommend his class to anyone. I wish I had something good to say, but I'm pretty sure he prays for his students failure which was especially evident when he burst into laughter when a student passed out during the final and got carried out by EMTs. It was dehumanizing to take this class and it should honestly be considered a form of cruel and unusual punishment.

Do anything you possibly can to avoid Xiong. Everything is self-study and the midterm average is a C. It is not worth the stress.

His lectures are not always super easy to understand, but he records and uploads all lectures and slides to Bruinlearn so class isn't mandatory at all. His midterms were easier than his final, but it was doable. Overall, I thought his class and grading was pretty fair. He curved overall grades at the end.

Haoren was not helpful when it came to understanding content. Most of the material you will have to learn on your own with little to no clarification from Xiong. His lectures often over complicate rather easy concepts, compared to an outside source, such as a YouTube video, might explain the topic. Midterms were nothing similar to the practice and often focus on smaller concepts not focused on in lecture. Both Midterms had a class average barely over 70%, with most people finding the same struggles. However, the work load was not too overwhelming, with about 10 homework problems a week. I would not recommend Xiong as a 31B professor unless you are ready to spend lots of hours teaching yourself.