This class is not as bad as everyone says it is! I took this class in the summer while classes were still online, so I may not be able to speak for in-person instruction. But I can tell you that this class, while definitely tough and A LOT of work, was not as terrible as everyone made it out to be. As you are probably aware, this class is separated into two separate portions, lecture and lab. Lecture consists of quizzes and the final exam, and lab consists of a group project and a variety of corresponding assignments. The thing that makes this class difficult is the fact that lab is graded on a curve, such that the mean score on any assignment becomes a ‘B’. That means that if the mean on an assignment is 74%, 74% becomes a ‘B’ grade ( YAY!! ). However, this also means that if the mean is 95%, 95% becomes a ‘B’ grade ( BOO:( ). If you are about 1 standard deviation above the mean, you basically got an ‘A’ on the assignment, and if you are 1 STD below, you basically got a ‘C’. They do this to ameliorate the effect of individual differences in TA grading on students’ grades across sections. So essentially, not only are you competing against your discussion section to get an A, your grade also most definitely rests in your TA’s hands. That is why it is SO SO important to have a good TA. Thank goodness I was blessed with Lucas as my TA… he was literally the best.. so helpful, so encouraging, and never made us feel super overwhelmed! Also, in lab, you have to design an experiment with a group of 2 other people in your discussion section. A huge chunk of your lab grade revolves around this group project. That means that it is equally important to have a good group as it is to have a good TA. God really did a favor to me and blessed me with the best group ever. We worked REALLY hard on the group project and even met virtually many times to go over assignments. This was really helpful because we could compare and share ideas (without plagiarizing of course)!

As for actual work, this class involves A LOT of writing, so if you are a good writer, you will probably have a good time in this class. If you are a weak writer, you will probably struggle a lot. I recommend starting early on assignments and proofreading everything over and over. Follow the writing guides to a T. Make sure you include all the information they are looking for, and be specific with tiny details.

For exams, I simply did the practice questions that were provided (about 400 questions), and I was golden! Honestly, the material in this class is not difficult at all. It’s just a matter of getting used to the types of questions they ask on the exams. It can be tricky, but keep calm and read each question and answer option twice before answering.

The class is broken down as follows:

Lecture (50% of total grade):
- 1 quiz w 5 questions (we only had 1 quiz worth 11% of our lecture grade because we had a holiday on one Monday and the lowest quiz grade was dropped)
- 1 exam with 40 questions, but 1 question was dropped (worth 89% of our lecture grade)

Lab (50% of total grade):
- study strategy proposal (15%): you answer a set of questions about how you would design a study to test the verity of a study strategy (for example, our study strategy was “exercise before an exam”)
- project proposal (10%): this is a group assignment where you answer questions about the experiment that you want to conduct in class for your group project
- final project write-up (40%): you write a partial research paper with an introduction, methods section, and references; mine ended up being 15 pages long including the title page and references (note that I had 2 pages of references, most people only have 1)
- discussion short answer assignment (20%): you answer questions about the limitations and implications of your experiment
- participation (15%): this includes doing homework assignments (e.g., 3 critical evaluations of studies, methods editing exercise, seed article review, keywords search exercise, etc.), answering and asking questions in class, preparing a group oral presentation to discuss the results of your experiment

And these are the grades that I got:

Lecture (A+):
- 1 quiz: 5/5
- Final Exam: 39/39

Total: 44/44 (100%)

Lab (A+):
- study strategy proposal: 100/100
- project proposal: 100/100
- final project write-up: 100/100
- discussion short answer: 58/60
- participation: 100/100

Total: 458/460 (99.6%)

For me, this class wasn’t too hard. I consider myself a strong writer and that’s probably why I got the grades that I got. I also took this class alongside Psych 115, which is a difficult class in its own right. Because I took both these classes during the summer, it was a lot to keep up with given the fast-paced and dense nature of both classes. Nevertheless, I am living proof that it is doable! In fact, I ended up getting an A+ in both classes. This just proves that good effort, hard work, and a little bit of luck should be good enough to get the grade that you want.

I took this in Fall 2020 online.

The grade breakdown is pretty simple. For participation, you need 5 points. You can get a point every time you go to an office hour with her or a TA, or when you make a post to the forums about something related to the lecture of that week. You also need to complete "Extension Assignments" and a "Research Assignment" (that is just answering 5 basic questions about a grad student presentation you watch sometime). These are all just really easy as long as you write something related to the prompt; basically most people get full points just for completing them.

There's also 5 quizzes with the lowest graded one dropped. 10 questions each that relate to either lecture material, the book, and grad student presentations. All the answers could basically be found in one of the 3 and it's open notes. The final is set up the same way with 30 questions and an essay question but is about as easy.

My only gripe with this class is that sometimes the lectures were recorded poorly and the audio got distorted, and that there was too much of the lectures and grad student presentations to watch every week. We also were assigned to read chapters of the textbook corresponding to each week's lecture to prepare, but I never did that and instead just used CTRL + F for keywords on my quizzes and exams. You can find the textbook online somewhere; it's still important for the quizzes and final in this class.

All in all, the content in this class and the way it is setup is really easy. Most students ended up with an easy A this quarter. If you've taken Psych 130, be prepared to see 80% of the same things over again because I took Psych 130 at the same time as this class and I was literally seeing the same slides twice a lot.

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Straight up-- Your grade in this class depends on three things. The curve, who is assigned to work with you in a group project, and who your TA is. Half of your grade is lecture, where you deal w 3 quizzes, 2 exams, which are timed, and you can't double check answers (which I will always think is a joke). I was blessed to do well enough. Ankowski is a textbook lecturer, meaning there is no personable approach-- she's straight up, and is clear in her lectures. The material does take reviewing and FULL understanding. Overall the lab (which has nothing to do w Ankowski) was horrible in my opinion, but I think the T.A., Abi Thornton was the overall issue (I got a B+ in the lab).

Here's why: tough grading, but even tougher help. TA's are apparently not allowed to give you direct answers to your questions regarding assignments, nor will they look at your work before submission. There should be nothing wrong with asking questions that help guide you. (for example, amongst many, [not understanding a research paper requirement and asking for an example went NOWHERE w my TA]). It was as if she wanted us to guess our way through a paper that was worth 40% of our grade, which is extremely irresponsible. All of us knew better than to ask specific questions about our own papers but she made us feel bad about virtually any question. Some students in the class had way cooler T.A.'s that provided much more guidance, but the T.A. I had got some sort of power trip watching us struggle. Bottom line, your T.A. plays a large role in your overall confidence in the class, because lab is half of your grade.

I took this class before on Winter '20, with Firstenberg, but retroactively dropped it. I found that the online version of this class (Spring '20) was easier in comparison to the traditional version. Why: (i) pre-recorded lectures were extremely helpful for going back to earlier concepts, (ii) presentation slides were used, in comparison to a chalkboard, (iii) exams were open-note and open-book, (iv) quizzes were graded for completion, instead of correctness, and (iv) the first assignment was also graded for completion, instead of correctness. Cons: (i) grades depended heavily on lab (40% lecture, 60% lab), which still utilized the bell-curve system (means that you'll be ranked against your peers in your own lab section), (ii) you really need some luck to get hardworking groupmates, and (iii) you don't actually get to conduct your final project.

Exam advice: Understand every single part of the lecture and do the practice exam. Once you're done, re-do it. Look at every possible answer and fully understand why the wrong answers are wrong and why the right answer is right. The exam will be testing 60% your test-taking abilities, and 40% the lecture materials. I did not touch the textbook at all and relied solely on the lectures. I found the second test to be SO much harder.

Lab advice: Try to speak up at least once every lab section. I found that lab assignments were extremely time-consuming, so try to get started on each assignment ASAP. Hit every point in the rubric and you'll be good to go.

Here are my stats:
Exam 1: 40/40
Exam 2: 39/40
Advice Proposal: 100/100
Project Proposal: 88/90
Final Project: 94/100

Due to the fact that this class consists only of lecture and has no discussion sections, "participation" counts as completing an in-class written assignment (usually just answering a couple of questions) and turning it in at the end of lecture, so it's a fairly chill class.

The exams are not that difficult, though our "simplified" final (due to COVID-19) of 100 T/F questions was a bit trickier than our midterm (which was 50 MC questions, if I recall correctly), but not too bad, especially since the final was open-book, open-note, while the midterm wasn't (I got 94 on the midterm and 88 on the final).

The two paper assignments were fairly straightforward and simplified from their earlier requirements, so as long as you put in some genuine effort on those and don't make up some completely random b.s., you should be okay.

Dr. Ankowski is one of the best and fairest professors at UCLA. This class was super easy. I never read the book or took notes in class. A lot of people are crying about taking a final with 100 T/F questions and they need to get it together because that final was super easy! What I appreciate about this professor is that she goes out of her way to be fair which is more than I can say for some other professors at UCLA. Plus, she is like super adorable and funny.

Amber Ankowski is known for her Psych 100B. She kept her exam practices from 100B to other courses like 133B, such that some exam questions are framed rather ambiguously. Besides, her lectures and slides may not always be helpful. One thing worth mentioning is that even though the final was made online and consisted of 100 T/F questions that she claimed to be 'significantly simplified', the median score was still lower than the midterm and I personally thought some of those questions were trickier than multiple choices. I know that reviews on Bruinwalk might be biased, like mine and the one who scored an A+, but most of my friends who have taken Ankowski's courses left extremely bad impressions on her. In my opinion, she's just trying everything possible to kill your GPA.

Professor Ankowsi is an absolute angel. She is one of the best lecturers I've had and considering this was an 8 AM class it made a huge difference. She is clear and engaging in the concepts she explains. The class is very straightforward and I could not recommend is more. 2 paper assignments, fairly simple, just had to formulate a paragraph response to 4 distinct questions pertaining to analyzing some outside material and related to cognitive development. The exams are pretty straight forward in my opinion. I just listened closely to the lectures and took diligent notes and I got an A on both exams. Of course it helps to read the textbook if you're confused but I found it to be time consuming and not worth it as long as you pay attention to every word Ankowski says (the slides posted aren't enough).

This is the second class I've taken with Ankowski and honestly I loved having her as a professor. She is really engaging and really knowledgeable about the subject.

I was honestly dreading taking this class because I have heard horror stories about it, but honestly it was not that bad. As long as you stay on top of your stuff and go to your TAs office hours you shouldn't have a problem. Keep up with the reading bc Ankowski asks 1-2 questions from the textbook (that were not touched upon in the lecture) on her tests. My biggest piece of advice would be to pay attention in lecture and read the textbook within that same lecture week and pay attention to the areas that correlate with the lecture in the textbook. Although the tests are non-cumalative, the material builds upon each other and so you can't forget what you learned in the first half of the class, otherwise you will really struggle with the second half.

The tests are worth 60% of your grade so make sure you are paying attention in lecture because lectures are not podcasted or recorded. The tests are all application of scenario and have the same format as practice exams so make sure you really give those your best effort.

Lab was the hardest part of this class. The group project is kind of difficult, but completely doable. Write all the submissions at least a week before they are do so you have time to go to your TAs office hours and ask for advice. Each TA is different so I would suggest sticking with what your TA tells you. It is not that the content is difficult, because it is not, it is the grading. APA sucks and I can honestly say that after this class I have become better at writing in APA. As long as you score above the mean you should be fine.

Start early , keep up with the content, and always go to lecture.

Hope this helps :)