Scerri is terribly organized. I could barely understand what he wrote on the white board because all of his drawings of molecules were all over the place. Overall, he was just a decent professor who only had half enthusiasm to teach a class.

Scerri's obnoxious, arrogant, and pretty funny sometimes. He also requires you to buy a $75 course reader and pink book which contains previous exams. And yes, you have to buy them.

The class itself is relatively not that bad. Well, it's not that bad if you took AP Chemistry, knew the material, and got a 4 or 5. Scerri goes by the course reader exclusively, so you don't really need the $130 textbook if you feel like you're up for it. The book does give better explanations, but it's oftentimes too complicated for the average student. During lecture, he reads off a PowerPoint (aka your course reader) and draws diagrams that are the blanks in the reader. Make sure to pay attention in class, because his exams are based exclusively off the course reader. There are a few exceptions, and while they are rare, they are pretty annoying.

Students also have to pay $30 for Thinkwell. This is mostly stupid because he only does it to put his mini-lectures on there, which aren't any more helpful than his in-class lectures. Plus the Thinkwell quiz questions are from a set bank, which means there are oftentimes questions that discuss material never covered in class. This is 15% of your grade. Another 15% comes from homework, which is assigned from the pink books. Try to be as precise as possible, and follow the reader when you can.

30% of the grade is the midterm. Lecture 1 had an average of 21/49, and this can mostly be attributed to the fact Scerri loves to ask conceptual questions and wants exact answers. For example, if you're missing one key word, you don't get all the points. He also asked a question that maybe 10 out of 300+ people got correctly. This is one of those exceptions I'm talking about. Again, that previous chemistry experience REALLY helps.

The last 40% is the final. I personally did not think the final was that hard; if you did all the pink book questions and memorized the course reader, then you're pretty good to go for the final. The only issue was that I heard Lecture 3 got some of the most random questions ever. Again, exceptions to the norm.

How do you survive this class? Pay attention in lecture, memorize the course reader, do the pink book, and have previous chemistry experience. Otherwise, good luck, because he moves fast. Very fast.

He SUCKS!!!

Scerri was all right. From what I hear, he's the best of the chem profs, which is also the reason I originally decided to take him.
His course reader was obnoxious. Full of blank pages that you'll never use unless you have massive handwriting, huge writing, lots of hand drawn or poorly copied pictures, weird organization, etc. If he put the effort into making it more organized and logical, it could potentially make his class great- for example, titles, a consistent organization and type, and labels. There are two reasons why he doesn't do this: 1- it would be work, since the pages are almost all just copies of the lecture slides he uses in class, and 2- he changes it every quarter, or says he does, so that you don't try to buy someone else's used and not give him that 75 dollars he needs because his salary isn't enough.
The reader is difficult to follow since you have to figure out which blank to write things in- usually there's a vague prompt such as Excluding... after which you draw a specific diagram. I found myself understanding what he's saying as he says it, but because of the poor organization, not really remembering what it is until I read the book, where it was explained logically. Most of the time, Scerri's explanations gave half of what was needed to understand the topic, and the book fleshed it out so that I understood. Unless you're a chemistry genius, read the book. It'll help, although it's written in an obnoxiously boring way. Don't buy the periodic table book.
I was annoyed to have to purchase a Thinkwell account for the quizzes: he only uses them because he can select from a question bank, rather than having to actually write the questions himself, and because it gives him a place to post the videos he made of himself teaching various aspects of chemistry (these may be marginally helpful if you're stuck on a certain topic).
Our midterm average was 21/49 (which is 42.9 percent, awesome!) which just goes to show you how well everyone understood the material. The TAs thought that a few of the questions were ridiculous. Conceptual questions were graded for specific words, not general concept (maybe because a couple of TAs had terrible English).
Pink book can be a redeeming factor if you can borrow one from someone who took the class (he doesn't change the book, just the color of the cover to make sure you buy a new one). Check your answers with as many people as you can. Copy definitions and conceptual questions EXACTLY out of the reader. He makes a big deal out of how you should do the tests in the pink book for practice, but there aren't any answers, so compare with someone.
He treats his TAs like slaves, which can be pretty entertaining. If you carry a whiteboard eraser, you might get the chance for the whole hall to applaud you.
Despite all of that, the lectures themselves were pretty good. Having the powerpoint made it easier to follow where he was. He is pretty funny- I don't recommend asking questions, but when someone does (if it's stupid) he'll give everyone a laugh about it.
Most people don't really want to be in the class, so there's a general lack of enthusiasm.
Hope that you get a good TA- if not, find out which one is good and go to their section. Mine tried really hard, but most of what he said wasn't that relevant or helpful.
If you're dedicated to reading the book yourself, and listening hard to the things he emphasizes in lecture, you'll probably do pretty well. Definitely take notes in the reader, and learn what's in the reader, because that's all he cares about. Scerri is genuinely amusing in class.

If you have the chance to take Scerri, DO IT! DO NOT TAKE BAUGH. my roommate took baugh this quarter and hated it. Scerri's class is easy (although im chem engineer) and straightforward. He lectures straight out of his course reader (which you have to buy and its expensive) but its a lot easier than reading through a textbook when i comes to studying. The class is split up into 3 sections: Pink Book Assignments, Thinkwell Quizzes and Exams (A midterm and final). The pink book is just a collection of past exams and you have to do maybe 1/4 of the questions for homework. THinkwell is a place to get easy marks because you get three tries at the quiz (different questions each time though) but you have to pay for it (and yes, it is mandatory). The bad thing about THinkwell is that I don't think scerri wrote the quizzes because they're a lot harder than the pink book questions and you need to google a lot of things to get the right answers. There are two drawbacks to Scerri: (1) he talks waaaay too much about the periodic table. spent the first 3 weeks on it (2) he is an arrogant asshole. If you're sitting in the front couple rows and you ask questions, he will mock you in front of the entire class. I swear one kid almost cried. Easy grader, funny guy, not a lot of work required: take him if you have the chance!

Though a passable lecturer, Scerri's fundamental weakness is his scanty, disheveled tree-killer of a Course Reader. The thing is horribly organized and presents concepts terribly with inadequate enumeration. Because Scerri follows the course reader almost religiously while lecturing, the material he introduces is consequently jumbled together. Scerri himself doesn't make much of a point clarifying it, either. So while it may be easy to understand a basic idea, he doesn't often introduce a basic premise from which to proceed, so learning how that concept fits into the main, fundamental idea becomes inexplicably difficult.

Poor teaching style aside, he's actually a pretty chill, if random, guy; he's amusing, with a biting sense of dry humor that many people mistake as arrogant. He'll occasionally make fun of you in class if you ask a seemingly ridiculous question, but unless you can't take a joke, he's just teasing you. He's normally very approachable, and he'll answer any question you ask. (Yeah, he'll play guitar.)

Compared to other chemistry teachers, Scerri can be considered decent. His course reader fails, so as a consequence his lecturing will be lacking, but there are worse Chemistry 20A teachers.

I was very confused during his lectures and I think it was because Scerri did not introduce concepts well. I don't think the other Chem teachers are better though. This class is definitely hard. I found it annoying because different TA's had different answers to the same questions. Also, on concept questions, Scerri expected people to regurgitate his information and the only way to get full points was to say what he said.

He sucks. His Thinkwell is so ambiguous!! There is always no right answer! And his Thinkwell quizzes often cover something he has never talked about in lecture. That sucks!

I only took this class to satisfy the requirements for being an engineering major, and couldn't stand it. Scerri seems to have little interest in his students, and on top of that, can be quite rude at times. Teachers like this are what give large schools like UCLA the stereotype of having teachers that don't care about students and are never available.

If you work hard in this class I'm guessing you will be able to get an A. But if you have no interest in the material and only put forth a mediocre effort (like I did) expect not better than a C or B if you're lucky.

I took both 20A and 20B with Scerri my freshman year, and got A+'s both quarters. The trick to succeeding in Scerri's class is to study his course reader, do a lot of practice problems from his booklet, and go to discussions. Although Scerri is a good lecturer, I felt like I learned more from my TA, Jenny, who was absoutely amazing!! Since she has been Scerri's TA for many years, she prepared us really well for his exams. Be warned, though, take this class only if you are willing to study and do the work. Since it is a relatively easy class, it's hard to do well in this class if you aren't willing to put in the effort. You can't make too many careless mistakes on the exams (there are only 2-- a final and a midterm) and expect to do well.

Overall, I recommend Scerri. His class is easy and fairly predictable if you get adjusted to the style of his tests (he really likes to test on theory and conceptual material rather than calculations, which I liked a lot about him).