Scerri is VERY conceptual-heavy in his teaching, which translates into his tests, as well. I've heard other professors focus a lot on calculations like stoichiometry and energy equations, but Scerri will gloss over those and delve into pros and cons of periodic table types and the history of different theories, even beginning the course with a sort of philosophy of science. This somewhat makes his tests easier, which are extremely fair and if you pay attention, you will do well.

His tests are predominantly short answer, one being a midterm and one being a final. The third part of your grade are these 4 super easy online quizzes using Thinkwell (which yes, you do have to pay $25 for) where you get 3 chances at each quiz to get a 100.

His lectures are quite fast-paced and unhelpful because he covers so many topics in such a short amount of time, but expects you to know them quite well. So hope you have a good TA (avoid Maryam at all costs) or take advantage of his office hours, where he is much more helpful.

Dr. Scerri has the most disorganized slides ever and he's hard to follow sometimes. If you took AP Chem in high school this class will definitely be easier for you. However, his exams are pretty straightforward and as long as you study from his provided exam materials you will be ok. I'd recommend watching YouTube videos or something else to supplement that because you'll have a hard time using his slides to study.

the worst prof i have ever had at UCLA. He doesn't seem to know what he is talking about. His powerpoints are also very disorganized and messy. I took AP chem in high school and got a 5, but still hated this class and struggled soooo much that I had to drop it a week before the final (however I was dropping it just because this quarter the school allowed us to do so without transcript notation, and I doubted that I would get an A in the class and I didn't want to spend all that effort and still get an A- to ruin my gpa). Anyway, a terrible class with a terrible professor.

This class was different from other gen chem classes in that it was concept focused. Scerri's lectures were engaging and he was always open to questions during and after class. If you understand all the concepts discussed in lecture and on the past midterms/finals, you should be fine for the exams, which account for the majority of your grade. He isn't the best at communicating outside of class and I wish he gave us more resources, but overall I feel like I learned a lot.

Avoid this man at all costs: like seriously no matter what you have to do don't take chemistry with Scerri. Currently taking 14A and its not even over and it's absolutely terrible. Day 1 I began and on zoom was this old man who did nothing but self promote his work and confuse me beyond belief.
Spoiler Alert: His slides are screenshots from textbooks or random questions online. So they are not cohesive and don't make a ton of sense. He just reads the pictures during lectures. During lecture he does a lot of self-promotion for this book he wrote on the periodic table (1/2 his lectures thus far *its week 6* have included pictures of the book). He hosted a review session for the midterm where he covered 5 weeks of content in 10 minutes, he clicked through the slides so fast you barley had time to read them let alone write anything down. His midterm was on a Sunday, mind you(who does that?), in-which included far too many short answer questions for the allotted time and had an entire 4 part question that was based on fake/made-up chemistry(I really wish I was making this up). His tests have typos, he doesn't explain topics that shouldn't be that hard and causes a lot of confusion. Overall he is one of the worst Professors I have ever had. Every lecture literally makes me more confused. He might be a nice guy but he is definitely one of those people who know what they are talking about so well that forget that we aren't on the same level. Organic Chemistry Tutor is the only reason I even know what the vocabulary words mean and what the equations are for this class. If you have to take him, don't do it. Please save yourself the head-ache and the stress.
-Thank you

I'm usually not someone who is harsh on professors at all, but Scerri is honestly intimidating. Lots of us have bandwidth/connectivity issues, etc, and so we didn't all switch our cameras on, and he always used to blame us for not having them on. Apart from that, he could see-saw from being understanding at times to some students and not at all to other students, so overall everyone was just low-key scared to ask him questions. His lectures are hard to follow and overall caused a lot of confusion, and while the midterm was manageable (I think the average was around an 80 something), the final was rough (many things we did not know showed up and he emailed us in the middle of the test to correct some things -which was definitely distracting). I think our TA said the final average for last quarter was something around a 68%, so be warned. We also had to do Sapling quizzes, which, if you stay on top of it, is quite manageable. However, Sapling did not actually translate to the real exams.

TLDR: Midterms are often recycled, but he makes the final super hard & confusing (as well as too long for the time limit). I would not recommend taking Scerri unless you have to, but if you do, be prepared to do lots of extra studying outside of class to understand the material.

Took this class with Scerri online during COVID. Our grades at this time relied on Sapling homework, 1 midterm, and the final.

SAPLING:
We had 9 required assignments (averaging about 25-30 problems per assignment) that were due by Week 10. Biggest advice for Sapling is DO NOT PROCRASTINATE. Do at least one assignment per week and you'll be fine. A 100% on Sapling is possible, but can take a while depending on how good your grasp is on the information. He gave us unlimited attempts on all of the questions, but there are a good handful that are somewhat difficult. Ask your classmates for help if you're stuck. Someone is bound to be able to help answer it.

MIDTERM:
Thankfully, the midterm for Spring '21 was fair. Do all of the past finals Scerri gives out, and look for more. Familiarizing yourself with the types of questions he might ask is worth your time, and a few questions are reused. Some of the test was calculation and some of it was conceptual. For conceptual questions, the answers usually came from what he said in lecture. Take note of EVERYTHING Scerri says because it's fair game on exams. By the way, the midterm and the final were both open book and open note but I still suggest knowing the material well because the exams are actually pretty long, and the last thing you want is to run out of time.

FINAL:
Basically what I said for the midterm, but, naturally, more difficult. The post-midterm material was much harder for me to understand.

Last Pieces of Advice:
Keep up with the content, write down everything Scerri says, and review the content regularly. Scerri isn't the best at explaining things during lecture, but he does a better job clarifying concepts in office hours. He's also pretty chill, likes cats, and plays guitar.

Scerri is extremely rude, condescending, and unaccommodating. He should not be a professor for an introductory chem class hundreds of students are required to take for their major.
You'll learn more by not attending his lectures and watching YouTube videos instead (though you will have to attend discussions/skim lecture slides to find out what the topics even are since the syllabus does not explicitly state what we need to know). Scerri can't be bothered to record his own lectures and relies on a TA to do so for him. He will often start a minute or two before lecture is officially supposed to start and go over time after lecture should have ended. He refuses to check the chat during lectures, leaving multiple questions unanswered. Scerri is only passionate about his everyday rants to turn cameras on and when he gets a chance to promote the book he wrote. Even though this is an introductory class, he completely skipped over basic chemistry, forcing us to rely on outside sources to learn how to balance reactions. His lectures are extremely disorganized and consist of words and images on a PDF that have no context or explanations. Scerri reads off these slides, sometimes adding vague information, but his meager explanations do not help clear up new and confusing concepts. He tells us to visualize something new without giving examples or showing pictures and seems to think that just showing us the work for a problem will mean that we understand how to solve it. If you have taken AP Chem, you'll be able to rely on past knowledge for the first few weeks, but after the midterm, concepts that aren't taught in AP Chem begin to be introduced.
Grading scale: 30% Sapling (about 8 or 9 quizzes all due at the end of the quarter but they can get time-consuming since most questions have multiple parts and some questions go more in depth than we are expected to know), 30% midterm, 40% final. This doesn't sound bad until you realize Scerri downcurves. His exams are vague and sometimes even the TAs get confused by what the questions are trying to ask. He expects us to fit an entire explanation on one or two given lines and if we go over the line limit, the graders are instructed to not read it. He expects us to magically know how many reasons we should give for questions and takes points off when we don't have enough, but again, even the TAs don't know what to say to reach the expected number of reasons. Scerri does recycle questions though, so try to do as many old exams as possible, but beware that some answer keys he posts are incorrect and/or incomplete.
If you have to take this class, try to get Spencer as your TA. Even if you don't have him (I had a different TA), Spencer posts his discussion recordings so that anyone can watch them and his discussion slides with practice questions and answers. You can attend his office hours even if you aren't in his discussions and before the midterm and final, Spencer hosted review sessions and answered all the questions we had and clarified concepts.
TLDR: Don't take this class with Scerri. Save yourself.
Scerri is a decent guitar player and he should pursue a career teaching the guitar instead since he was much more passionate when playing the guitar than he ever was during any one of the lectures.

Believe ALL the reviews posted for Scerri, no matter the course, and I know there is a lot. If you are thinking about taking chem 14A, DON'T TAKE IT WITH SCERRI. His class is a mess, disorganized, and not fun at all. During class time (took this class online because of COVID), he just reads off his lecture slides word for word. Often focuses on the history of chemistry instead of actually solving problems. When he does show us problems, he doesn't physically go through the problems with you and because this is an introductory course, it's kind of important that he does. For midterm and final "reviews" he just combines all his slides from past weeks into one big slide and spends the class time reading them word for word, just faster. You're better off not attending lecture, just discussion. (He interrupted multiple lectures by asking why no one had their cameras on instead of focusing on teaching. When we gave reasons (internet connectivity, more cameras on = lagging issues, distractions, etc) he basically dismissed them and said they were stupid and untrue.) Discussions aren't mandatory but they're IMPORTANT if you don't want to listen to Professor Scerri. In discussions, TAs help with actually solving problems and what they mean in the context of the class. I had Spencer as my TA and he was a GREAT help. Besides 1 midterm during week 5 and the final, there are 9 Sapling quizzes you have to do. He doesn't offer any schedule to do the quizzes, just one big deadline at the beginning of week 10 so you have to create your own or you can choose to save them until the end of the quarter (I don't recommend this though). This class is heavily curved but you'll survive if you learn to work well with your peers and ask for help. Join a PLF session and talk with your peers on help with sapling quizzes. Class only consists of 3 grades: Sapling, Midterm, and Final. Our midterm was very easy with almost all questions copied word for word from another exam in previous years but for the final, it was devastating so don't think that you can float on by in this class.

tldr: This class is messy from start to finish. Don't go to lecture; go to discussions. Try to get Spencer as your TA. Sapling is required and try to finish one quiz a week to be on track. Midterm is easy but final was excruciatingly hard. Class is curved. Get help from PLF sessions. Grade consists of: sapling, midterm, and final. If you're in this class, you can text (626) 425-0939 for pdfs of past midterms and finals with answers (as well as blank ones so you can practice with).

Professor Scerri is very forgiving and does care about his students. He accepted my late submission of my final without deducting any points and I was beyond grateful. However, aside from that, this class is tough. The sapling isn't due until the end of the quarter, so most students don't pace it out well and end up cramming through it while studying for the final. Also, our final was quite horrible. Some questions were familiar, but a lot were brand new.