Dr. Lavelle's class is definitely not going to be the easiest A you will get at UCLA. The material covered in CHEM 14B is defiantly much tougher than the material covered in CHEM 14A. Overall, however, Dr. Lavelle does provide with the tools needed for one to succeed in his class. His midterms and final were very fair and contained the problems provided in his syllabus (DO THEM). He also provides UA review sessions which proved to be very helpful. I will say that Dr. Lavelle's lectures themselves are not very useful and tend to be very boring. They oftentimes are spent deriving equations rather than actually doing problems. In past midterms and final he has used these derivations but not on ours. However as he is transitioning back to his pre COVID style, I would expect these lectures to be more useful. The UA sessions were by far the most useful portion of this class. They happen outside of lecture and discussion and help solidify understanding on topics. Shoutout to Gabriel! The reason I got this A was partially because I attended his UA sessions every week. Closer to midterms and finals I would definitely recommend trying to do at least 3 UA sessions to cover all your bases.

In all honesty I am very neutral on Dr. Lavelle. I think his difficulty (or perceived difficulty) is very much to do with the fact that CHEM 14B is a jump from 14A. I would recommend taking Lavelle any day over Scerri. Good luck if you plan on taking this class!!!!

The class isn't too hard as long as you dedicate time to doing a lot of independent practice and studying. Attendance is required for discussion, but not lecture, and lectures are recorded. Discussion sections are helpful for expanding on concepts in lecture and doing practice problems. Overall the class was manageable, just do the textbook readings and practice problems he recommends!

Honestly, this class is truly about how much work you want to put in. The class itself can be difficult at times, but totally, totally manageable. I would say the worst part of this class that I am not seeing enough reviews about is the fact that his tests are in person and are hard. I guess thats subjective, but I came into the class thinking they were going to be a similar format to what he did in 14A, where we had multiple questions that varied in difficulty level, but that were all worth 4 points. In 14B, its almost all free response, and the tests are on paper, meaning you have to really really know exactly what you need to do. Each midterm is out of 60 points and often the midterms each had one 12 point question. It was normally extremely hard, so if you got it wrong, you would get a 48/60 which is an 80. You don't think its that bad until you realize that you can only miss 26 points in the whole class if you want to get an A. The class is out of 370 points and you need a 344/370 to get a 93 because he doesn't round up lol. Be prepared to spend stupid amount of time on this class if you want to do well.

Dr. Lavelle is super sweet and very knowledgable in his field of study. His lectures and presentations were always well prepared and he goes at a decent pace. Homework consists of weekly or sometimes bi-weekly questions on Achieve (usually 10-20 questions) that you have unlimited attempts on (you can get 100% if you just make sure to get all the right answers by the due date!) It is annoying that there are 2 sets of midterms but they are evenly spaced out and are only an hour long. Doing the mandatory Chemistry Community questions on a weekly basis does get annoying at times and it feels forced when we have to ask questions, when sometimes I don't even know what to ask! But overall, Dr. Lavelle provides a plethora of resources that are very flexible for all students and he really does want all his students to succeed.

This class consists of two midterm exams, one final exam, weekly homeworks, attendance at discussion sections, and participation in the online chemistry forum. The tests are not overly difficult, and the participation based assignments give you a good amount of buffer in your grade.

Lavelle's lectures are very clear, and he never puts anything on exams that was not explicitly covered in class. The exams are often very similar to the textbook problems, so students who do all the weekly problems can succeed easily. Additionally, the UA sessions offer great support to students who need extra help.

This was a great class and I recommend taking it with Lavelle!

I do think that with CHEM 14A there are enough resources to succeed. That being said, I do think you really need to read the textbook to do well in this class. The review sessions are not that equivalent to the tests he gives. The TAs and LAs tend to just reuse textbook questions which honestly do not show up as much as people claim they do. Achieve is more helpful that people give it credit for. Honestly, I thought it was more effective than the homework questions and maybe equally reflective. This is one of those classes where you just need to devote a lot of time to do well on. Make sure to really understand the concepts of the class. The workload is not bad whatsoever, very manageable but you will need to do lots of outside review should you want a good grade.

This class has frustrated me to my core. I had a very easy time understanding the material in the achieve question as well as those given in the outlines. Yet this proved to be a big waste of time as I feel all the practice we did not apply to the test whatsoever as Lavelle's tests consists of vague and confusing questions that do not test your knowledge on the practice he gives out. I was holding a strong B until the final came where he put such a huge emphasis on Acids and Bases which had finished learning about ONLY DAYS AGO!!!

Lauvelle is honestly one of the better professors here at UCLA. He's incredibly helpful and his lectures are fun. If he is teaching a class, take it! He provides SO MANY RESOURCES, and even if you do bad on the exams, you'll still pass the class, as the rest of the points for the class are all points easy points.

If you have Q. Doung as a TA though, change discussions ASAPPP!! Literally run. Duong is and was honestly the worst TA/ educator/ faculty I've ever came about during my time here at UCLA. I've never met an educator that cared less about making sure that the students were actually learning something while in their class. You could tell he was knowledgeable on the topics that he was going over, however he assumed everyone was as smart as he was. He would speed through problems and call every practice problem "pretty easy." During midterm weeks, he gave us no extra resources, and would even cut his discussions short instead of doing reviews or active Q&A, although I feel like even if he did, nobody would ask anything in fear of feeling stupid because of his response. I understand that it's not his job to make sure we understand material but I think given the fact that he was a resource from the university and course, he should at least be helpful.

If I had to choose between shooting my left foot or taking this class, I would shoot my right foot also. Laurence has the characteristics and quality of a houseplant, except I think they get more sunlight than he does. Actually, I think a houseplant could teach this class better than he does. In fact, if he ever were to get an award for teaching it would be for rambling because that is about all he does well. And, to make matters worse, his tests are nothing like the practice tests. You would think that, in all his generosity and lovingkindness, he would at least throw in a couple familiar questions. He eats your sufferings for breakfast. He does not care.

If someone told you that you can easily pass chem14A by studying AP Chem, they are correct but not for Lavelle's course. He never post his slide on the canvas. Instead, he provides us tons of extra materials which really mess me up because it is my first time to see such a irresponsible professor. Besides, his exams are totally different from the homework he gives to us. I do not know how other people can get a score higher than B. At least I think it's extremely unfair to people who don't have a strong foundation in chemistry, since he's assuming that everyone got a five on AP Chem.