I took this class during the strike of Palestine and the TA strike. Initially midterms and finals were in person but because of all the disruption he made it online as a free response. However, this will most likely not happen again since this only happened because of the strike. So expect your midterm and final to be in person. you have to buy a course reader the digital version I think was around 20 to 30 dollars. You need that reader since it gives you lecture slides and the questions you will need for midterm and final. Both tests will be non cumulative so thats nice. I would say that the content for the midterm was easier to study. you need to study ahead because there is a lot of content. For the final I think the content was a little harder but if you took biochem already it should be easy ( I didnt so I found it to be more difficult) there will also be more questions for the final than the midterm. lectures are recorded so no need to worry about going, but discussions were mandatory but it was mostly based on attendance there were never any worksheets due. you did have to do a weekly 100 word assignment and he also provided one extra credit assignment that was worth 5%. Overall, this class is based on a lot of memorization so be prepared for that and study early. Good luck bruins !

Before the start of this course, I had little interest in plants or their inner workings. I came to really enjoy this class and the subject matter. This class filled a requirement for my biology major and was a great alternative to taking chemistry courses that were offered in the same space. Dr. Sack really drilled home the importance of plants, their impacts on the ecosystem, how ecosystems impact them, and how plants relate to the energy systems of animals. The diversity of students' starting knowledge of plants is accepted and accommodated by Dr. Sack and his course. His exams were very fair and tested our knowledge of course materials rather than forcing too many theoretical analyses. Dr. Sack's passion for plants and teaching people about them is readily apparent in his lectures and enthusiasm throughout the class. He's thorough in his lectures, uses practice questions throughout them, and always invites people to attend his office hours for help or to discuss other topics related to course material. Course materials are all available via inclusive access. Discussions are mandatory but help clarify course content and go over practice questions. I highly recommend taking this class rather than a Chemistry course for the Biology upper-division energy systems class.

selling course reader for $30, text at ********** if interested

DO NOT TAKE HIM!!
This class was a complete waste of my time and Sack is a terrible professor. Not only does he base the ENTIRE course off only TWO big in-person exams, he apparently made his exams "harder" by now including information, not on the promoted "pink slide questions". I studied my butt off for the final exam only to receive a grade I was not expecting. I spent almost a week studying for this class and even prioritized the content of this course over my own major course content. The final included questions outside of the "pink slides" even though he tells his class that the only information found on the exam would be from those slides. Not only is he adding information on the exams that were not from the pink slides, but he added questions about things we didn't even cover during class time. Also, the course reader (which was $70 and the only way you could get a hold of his slides) was incredibly vague on some topics or it had way too much detail on other topics (to the point where the information began to confuse me). If this is your only STEM class for the quarter, then by all means take it. If you take a good week or two to memorize the entire course reader front to back, then you'll definitely get an A in the class. But if you have a life and don't have superhuman memory then you're doomed :)

Not to mention the professor himself is so incredibly condescending and thinks that the material in this class is common sense. I'm sorry babes but it's not.

Selling the course reader from spring of 2022 for $25. If interested contact me at *************.

I will have to disagree with the other reviews. I made a quizlet for both of the midterms and studied for 1 week before and earned high As on both exams. It is absolutely brute memorization, so if you are not good with memorization this is not the class for you. There are 2-3 questions per exam that are not directly from the pink slides and the answers are often given in the question if you read carefully. I think a lot of people expected to study the night before or 2 days before and earn an A. There is a lot of content in each unit exam, with a lot of terms to memorize, so you have to start early. Discussion is useless but you have to attend. The class content is very dry at times, so it is hard to stay interested. Overall this was one of the easier classes I have taken, and I would take this class again.

The exams weren't too difficult but required studying the course reader extensively. The final was pretty easy as it mainly contained questions from the "pink slides." Lecture material was pretty boring.

Get the course reader and study the front of it! I strongly relied on those for the tests and I did well in the class. Just focus on staying on track with the material and you will be fine. Tests were multiple-choice, one with about 40 questions and the other is 50. Course reader is a must!

The average for the midterm was an A minus. The exams are entirely multiple choice and the majority of questions he will ask are provided to you beforehand. However, because the tests are so straightforward, there is very little room for error given. Advice for lectures: skim the course reader before attending/watching recordings so you know when to pay attention. You only need to know what is precisely listed in the course reader, and a lot of what is said during lecture is fluff. If you can understand everything in the reader by yourself there is no need to watch lecture. The format of this class is not for everyone but I personally enjoyed it - no group projects, recorded lectures, no participation so I would just do other work during discussion, do flashcards for the coursereader info like a week before each exam.

Like others have said, the class itself isnt too difficult but you dont have too much room for error. Midterm is worth 44% of your grade and the final 45%. Missing just a couple questions could drop your grade. Discussion assignments accounts for 10%, fairly easy and straightforward assignments. Just do them and put a little bit of effort into them and you will be fine. They do help a bit with applying material. 1% comes from the course review, essentially extra credit.

The exams are fair and not overly difficult. Theres a lot of material but Sack condenses it into study slides (pink/dark gray slides in reader). Study these. Know the questions and answers because they will come up on the exams. He even tells us to focus on them. Start early and make your own study guide, you will do fine if you study these questions.

Read the front of the reader too. The material is all there, use it to answer the study questions because they will be on the exam. The exam will consist mostly of the study guide questions but there are a few tricky questions that you will only be able to answer if you show up to lecture, listen to the cast, or read the reader.

Overall, class is not difficult but theres a lot of material. Achieving an A is feasible if you put in some effort. Sacks a good lecturer too, though many people stop showing up to lecture early on since its casted.

If you're looking to take an easy EEB class, then look no further. This class has an extremely light workload, and all it requires yourself is buckling down to memorize everything before the exams.

Grade breakdown:
- Discussion worksheets 5%
- Discussion attendance 5%
- Midterm 44%
- Final (non-cumulative) 45%
- Course evaluation 1%

COURSE READER: Buy it because you will need it. It's dummy expensive, but it's the only resource you need to succeed in this class. Everything from the syllabus to the lecture slides to the discussion worksheets are all found inside the course reader. Perhaps the most important tool inside the course reader are the study guides located in the front, which contains all the lecture details in bullet format.

LECTURES: Sack is an amazing professor, and his passion for teaching plant physiology is evident in every lecture, BUT I can second everyone who has previously said that if you have very little interest in plants, it will be hard to focus in this class. With that being said, you do not have to attend class OR watch Bruin Cast to succeed in this class (gasp). I went to almost every lecture and found that the amount of detail covered in lecture was not necessary to succeed on the exams.

DISCUSSION: Attendance in discussion is mandatory. A worksheet is due weekly at the beginning of each section, and they range in difficulty. Some were extremely easy and took no time at all (e.g. come up with three questions that you have about plants) and others were a little more difficult such as the QUARMs, which were more time-consuming and required "data analysis." I can guarantee that I never spent more than an hour on these worksheets, so they really aren't that bad. The worksheets seemed like they were graded pretty leniently and more so based on completion than on correctness. You basically get free points for showing up to discussion on time (my TA docked down people who showed up late).

EXAMS: Ok it appears a little daunting that your exams are worth 89% of your grade. The good news is that 1) there's only one midterm (yeet) 2) the final is non-cumulative (double yeet) and 3) the exams are fairly easy multiple choice questions. The bad news is that since there aren't that many questions on each exam (42 on midterm, 51 on final), there is little room for error because missing just one question could really cost you. Doing well on the exams is 90% memorization and 10% (somewhat) critical thinking. Sack throws a couple questions in the end that aren't straight out of the course reader and require you to connect some of the main ideas. I wouldn't stress too much about these questions because you can usually logic your way through them.

*How to do well in this class*:
1) Get all your discussion points because there's no reason not to. 10% of your grade is simply showing up to your section on time and completing worksheets.
2) Start studying for the exams EARLY. I say to give yourself at least a week before each exam to create flashcards and commit them to memory. The reason that I emphasize starting early is due to the sheer amount of information that you have to memorize.
3) Memorize the answers to ALL the study questions!!! The study questions are weaved into the lecture slides, and almost all the answers can be found using the study guides in the front of the reader. This is how Sack will tell you to prepare for the exam, and I can assure you that at least 50% of the exam questions are straight from the study questions.
4) Now I would say that the most difficult part of studying for the exams is memorizing every little thing from the study guides... I made flashcards on EVERYTHING from the study guides (I probably created ~500 flashcards for this class lol) because anything was fair game. Choose whatever method works best for you, but I wouldn't skimp out on knowing the details from the study guides, as dense and as convoluted as they may be. Going that extra mile is what got me close-to-perfect scores on both the midterm and the final.

If memorization isn't your thang, then I probably wouldn't recommend this class. Overall, I found EEB 162 to be an extremely manageable class, given you don't save studying to the last minute. Good luck and go bruins :)))