Being an international student, I took this class without prior knowledge of American history and politics. Most people in the class had learnt the material, but I found it relatively harder just because I was not familiar. However, I did regular readings and the material was easy to digest. I came across some difficulties with the paper and some of the terms, but the TAs were extremely helpful and graded the papers leniently. I went to office hours of another TA and he was friendly enough to answer a lot of my questions!
There is one midterm, one paper, and one final, and there is quite a bit of memorization to do if you have never done a class about American government, but it should be a breeze to understand and score well if you have! And if you haven't, the class is interesting and a little bit of effort will guarantee you an A :)

Professor T is very smart but really boring. You'll learn a lot because his class is comprehensive but you'll probably hear some people snoring. I'm not exaggerating, the person next to me fell asleep. He is a fair grader.

Boring and disorganized lectures. Technical difficulties in about 1/2 of the classes. Overall a waste of time. I fell dumber after taking the class!

PS 140A: CONGRESS

Selling the books required for the course, email me if interested.

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NOTE CLASS TAKEN WAS 140A: congress

The class way OKAY. It seemed pretty bland for the most part--maybe that was because it isn't the most interesting subject matter (for me at least). His exams cover everything--lectures, reading for lectures, and section reading.

Selling the books required for the course, email me if interested.

I though Tausanovitch was a good professor. His exams were fair, and the grading isn't harsh at all. A lot of people had issues with time on the midterm, but I was not one of them. Even then, he offered extra points because some people thought the midterm was too long.

He's entertaining, and lectures are interesting. However, he does tend to be pedantic at times, and there is a LOT of information to digest. I have to admit, at times it is difficult to stay awake in lectures. But overall, this is a good class with him, and it's easy. Take it!

Maybe I'm the only one who found the reading to be a little excessive.
Professor Tausanovitch is the kind of guy that's super professional, is very young and seems new in the university education field. This is my assumption because I have found in the past that older professors go a bit easier on their students, and newer professors are a bit tougher.
I thought the exams were okay, not ridiculously hard but not super easy.
The content was somewhat interesting. I mostly took the class to at least be introduced to politics and learn about our country's government.
I ended up with a C, but I'm sure if you try a little harder than me, you can end up with a better grade.

Took PoliSci40 Spring 2013. Needed the class as a GE, but am not a big fan of politics. Class average for the mid term was a mid 80s, but I got the impression many classmates didn't even do the readings... The reading are crucial for the quizzes and tests. If you do all the readings, the class is really pretty easy and straightforward. I went to all the lectures, but if you needed to miss a couple I think you'd be alright. His lectures themselves were fine, I just dislike politics in general and didn't expect to enjoy them much. I did the reading each week highlighting as I went, and spent a day or two before midterm/final reviewing the study guide and highlighted readings. Overall a fine GE to take and without much effort I ended up with an A+. I'd recommend the class if you're willing to do the 70ish pages of reading a week (not a big deal).

I am not into political science AT ALL but I ended up with an A and overall his tests were very fair.

My TA didn't help that much with grasping the general ideas, but if you go to every lecture and take good notes you should be fine. I didn't read the text book all the way through, but focused on the intro/conclusion and learning the key bolded term which seemed to be enough. When it came to the articles, memorize the title/author and get a good understanding of the main points and you can use those as proof for the essay.

The test consists of term IDs from a REALLY long list so that just requires a lot of memorizing. Then there are two one paragraph answer questions, which require an understanding of important concepts. And lastly there is a debate essay where you have to take a side and use evidence to support your opinion. Thats when memorizing the articles comes in handy.

Overall not too bad, and I feel like I did learn a lot. The professor is new and young, so tries to seem tough, but he also adds funny videos and is a good lecturer.

This class wasn't as interesting as I expected ( I'm a huge gov nerd). Most of the course is like your typical high school American government class. However, Professor Tausanovitch tries to make the class as engaging as possible by showing pretty entertaining videos, like Obama "slow jamming the news." He's a funny guy, too, if you understand his nerdy sense of humor. I really enjoyed how he would tie in current events to the topic of that day's lecture, which made the material more relevant and interesting.

The class was straightforward and fair in terms of difficulty. The readings can be a bit tedious, but section is incredibly helpful in clarifying the main ideas of the texts. Both the midterm and final consisted of a few multiple choice questions, identification terms, short answers, and an essay. He gives you a list of all the possible terms for identification questions and previous midterms, though, so there are really no surprises.

Overall, the class was okay. It's not incredibly hard, but it's also not incredibly interesting.