Professor Shen is great. She's definitely concerned about student learning and wants to see you succeed in her class. She's very understanding when it comes to turning in assignments late and making up quizzes (although try not to make it a habit if you don't have a good reason...). She's been teaching Chinese for over a decade and her experience really shows in her lectures and class structure. And she always writes up these really nice handouts that include a lot of new vocabulary or elaborate on grammar points. This class is understandably difficult for anyone who is coming into her class without a background in Chinese, but she encourages students to see her at office hours. She's always willing to help you learn and if you just want to chat or practice speaking anything in Chinese, she'll help you with that as well.

As for her tests, she'll always tell you exactly what's going to be on the test beforehand. I think they can still be pretty tricky to study for since they're quite comprehensive. I would focus on knowing the texts and grammar points, the translations from homework, as well as familiarizing yourself with whichever exercises she mentions. The tests do get progressively harder as you progress through the series, as she started asking us to write short paragraphs in 100B, and my test grades have been steadily dropping from the first one in 100A :( My Chinese has definitely improved since I've taken her class.

Fun fact: she wrote the Barron's AP Chinese book!