Overall, this class was tougher than LS7A and many of my friends who got an A in LS7A would agree. The grade distribution might contradict, but the tests were harder. Marcot was an alright professor. His review session and office hours weren't as good as Kane's. Often times when we ask him a hypothetical question, he would say, "I don't know. I would need more information." However, Kane always answered our hypothetical questions, when I went to her review sessions. Also, I would choose a different professor, like Kane, but it doesn't really matter since the class is standardized and your grade depends on how well you know the material. The labs are very useless as they don't pertain to the exams. They were basically long LS7A discussions. Very boring. CLC hours were the most beneficial. If lab was like CLC hours, then it would've been worth it.

The first midterm was rough. Apparently, it is either the first or second midterm that is tough (after talking to people who previously took the course), but it doesn't matter since the hard midterm is always about Pedigrees. We barely had any time to finish, and it felt like a rush since we only had around 5 minutes left to double-check. The second midterm was way easier with almost an hour left. The Final was online due to COVID-19 and it was hard. Somehow, I managed to pull off an A, but one mistake I made was coming into LS7B with the mindset that LS7B would be a breeze. As a tip, you should understand how to do pedigrees very well and quickly. Go online and find examples, since they do not provide you with enough practice material. Use the clicker questions and practice exam questions as "practice tests" and do them after you review every chapter. Good luck and study hard!

This review will have a little bit of information about Professor Marcot, but will mainly focus on 7B as a class. Professor Marcot was very nice and clearly knowledgeable about the material if you asked him a content-related question. He also encouraged students to discuss with each other and ask questions. However, this caused our class to go a little slow, and we were always behind on material. If you asked him a course logistic-related question such as whether certain material would be on an exam, he didn't know because this class is entirely controlled and designed by Debra Pires. The clicker questions are so ambiguous that the professor occasionally crosses out all of the options and writes "It depends" as the answer. This translates to ambiguous exam questions too, to the point where my TA said during an exam, "We're getting lots of questions about how to interpret the problems, but we can't help you with that." The first midterm was nearly impossible to finish on time because you have to draw multiple detailed pedigrees from scratch and answer questions about them, but the second midterm was slightly better. The lab sections are designated to be nearly two hours long, but somehow the labs themselves are designed so that you have to work extremely quick if you have any hope of finishing them (they average around 6 pages worth of questions). The labs are also mostly unrelated to material that will be on the exams. For example, there was a lab where we had to go to 15 stations to learn about coelacanths, cephalopods, vertebrates, etc. and another lab where we had to go to different stations in the Botanical Garden on our own time. None of the professors answered questions on the online Campuswire forum, so it was just students trying to help other students. My best advice for this class is to get most, if not all, of the free points for participation, Launchpad pre-class review questions, Launchpad practice exam questions, etc., and go to your TA's office hours if you have questions. I would HIGHLY recommend going to the CLC problem solving sessions because this is where the LA's teach the material that the professors do not teach during the lecture but will nevertheless be on the exams. To study for exams, I would recommend focusing on the clicker questions, practice exam questions, the practice midterm questions that Professor Pires will email you, and the CLC worksheets. Don't worry too much about which professor you take for this class, because it's going to be very challenging (but doable if you work hard enough) no matter what.

I thought Dr. Marcot did a great job teaching LS7B. My complaints are mainly about the course. The tests are super tricky and don’t make sense at all. The second midterm the wording was super confusing and messed up a lot of the class. My grade was not bad at all but I struggled immensely in this class. Don’t be fooled by those who say 7B is easier than 7A. Marcot did a good job teaching and answered questions thoroughly. Since the course is standardized, you won’t be able to escape the tests but I would recommend Dr. Marcot for 7B.

Not helpful at all. Whenever I have a question he would tell me that we need more info.

Take this from someone who earned a C+ in 7A. I found this class enjoyable. I wish I was exaggerating or lying but I really liked this class. The concepts (Genetics and Evolution) were fun to learn and the class was manageable.
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LECTURES
Overall, the lectures were okay. Marcot is an alright professor. He seems to know his stuff, but he's not the best when explaining. There were multiple times when he would give vague answers to valid questions, so that was a bit annoying. His office hours were EXTREMELY limited (he set aside one hour each week for all the three classes he taught to share; that's over a thousand students!) and I found them to not be helpful at all. I went for the first few weeks and then I gave up after Week 6.
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LAB SECTION
Oh geez. This is one of the few things I dreaded about this class. The lab sections were two hours long (on paper), but they usually lasted for about one and a half hours. It's kind of stupid, especially when you're "required" to wear PPE to fill out worksheets. Yeah, I'll totally get hurt from paper. My TA was chill and for the first week, he cared about you wearing PPE, but after that, he just gave up (That's probably due to the fact it was an 8 am lab section). For the first few weeks, the lab sections pertained to our lectures and I found them helpful but towards the middle of the quarter, they made no sense and correlated to nothing that we learned in lecture. Also, you'll have to make a trip to the Botanical Garden for one of those labs to observe things (what a waste of one hour of my life)
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MIDTERMS
I thought the first midterm was manageable (I got a 90%) and it was mostly applicational. You just had to know how to draw and read pedigrees and calculate probabilities. I found the second midterm (I got an 80%) to be more challenging as most of the questions were worded poorly and the pictures provided were not helpful in answering the questions.
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FINAL EXAM
So due to our situation with the rest of Winter Quarter and Finals Week of 2020 being moved online, the final exam was also online. I personally didn't take the final exam because after calculating my grade, I knew I was going to receive an A- anyway so I just wanted to spare myself some time and mentality. From what I heard, the final exam was extremely difficult, but I don't have a say in this as I didn't take it.
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EXTRA CREDIT
Like with 7A, this class offers few opportunities for extra credit (like with surveys and evaluations).

Jon was a good lecturer, however he was kind of slow and finished the syllabus for the 1st midterm on the day of the exam. Jon was also not very responsive during the COvid 19 outbreak and everything was deflected to Dr Pires.

Overall, Marcot was the most eh professor I've taken in my time here. However, he wasn't too bad. The LS 7 series is set up in a really annoying format, so he didn't have much to do with that. However, I felt that he could have helped us out by having more than one one-hour office hour each week. Also, there was a mistake on my midterm score, and when I emailed him about it, he just chose not to email me back, which I think is just not a fair response. Honestly, the class content is extremely dry, but I think he did the best with what he had.

Like many of you, I had to take this course because it is required for my major. Not to cause extreme worry, but this was my least favorite course this quarter for several reasons.

Labs - which are really just discussion sections that require you to wear closed-toe shoes, were either way too long or way too short. Usually, we just do a worksheet in pairs or groups which doesn't take too long, but eventually these worksheets became small packets. It became a task just to finish all the questions, but at least it wasn't difficult. A couple weeks required us to walk down to the UCLA Botanical Garden (which imo is quite a trek) which was fun to get outside of ugly South Campus, but had no real practical purpose. In short, labs are easy but are a little tedious, and the straightforward questions that we went over in lab aren't like the ones on the exam. My TA Jess was very sweet and helpful, but with evolution some topics are a bit broad and tricky, which was not her fault, but it's difficult for anyone to get a concrete answer if every time "it depends".

Exams - jfc these are actually the worst part of this class. Apparently the head of the LS7 series heard complaints that the tests were too easy...and as a result she made them almost impossible to get an A on. I thought the first midterm on probability/meiosis went *okay* and I got an 85, the class average was an 81. There were so many probability questions that there really wasn't any time after calculations to check your answers, and I heard some people couldn't even finish the exam. The second midterm on evolution was absolute trash, no joke, it was so hard (for me). I scored a 77, the class got a 84. :(( This was probably my fault, because I didn't study as much as I could've and taking this class at 8am didn't help me to focus.

Launchpad wasn't actually a huge sore spot this quarter, and you should be used to doing it if you've taken LS7A. This quarter, only the pre-class review questions and practice exam questions are graded, which makes it easier to keep track of things and not accidentally miss points. Although if you're one of those people who just skims Launchpad and doesn't read and magically does well on exams - yeah, that might be a little harder. Especially considering how concept-based this course is, it's rally important to read the boring paragraphs and the examples, because some of same examples from the textbook were on the midterms and final!!

Bottom line - it IS possible to get an A in this class, or at least an A-. I calculated my grade and I was actually supposed to get an 89%/B+, but my professor decided to extend the range down so I got an A- (much to my pleasant surprise). As long as you complete all your launchpad assignments, attend class (or at least don't miss more than 3 days for participation), and generally study as best as you can, there should be nothing to worry about. YOU GOT THIS!!

Marcot is a really nice guy and looks like a young version of Santa Claus. He's very passionate about paleontology and always answers students questions thoroughly. With that being said, it is definitely a difficult class with a lot of content. However, I feel like Marcot does a good job explaining content. The only thing is that tests are shared through the department, so I'm assuming Pires writes them. For anyone who has taken her for 7A, you know how weirdly worded and difficult her tests are. It's exactly the same in 7B. I say just do the test reflections for extra credit, submit your labs and Launchpad assignments on time, and you should be good. Don't get it twisted, this professor is great, but the class is just so hard.

About the professor:
- I don't know what the other professors were like, but I personally wouldn't have a problem retaking LS 7B with the same professor.
- Professor Marcot was okay. Not the worst, not the best.
- Often ran out of time to finish all the slides and didn't have the answer to some student questions, but didn't affect my learning to a big extent.
- Lectures aren't very engaging but not too boring, just okay. Not crystal clear, but not confusingly unclear either. Really just okay.

About the course:
1. I personally found the class content to be much easier than LS 7A. I think the concepts that most people struggled with were pedigrees & non-disjunction. Watching Youtube videos really helped me, especially this one which is about non-disjunction with Klinefelter syndrome (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cf7bgMrHNzA&ab_channel=FaaizahAcademy),

2. However, I think it's relatively harder to get an A than 7A because there's no group portion of the exams which is helpful in boosting exam scores. I felt that the final was more difficult than the midterms.

3. Unlike 7A the pre-class reading guides were optional, so I felt that the workload was lighter and more manageable. Launchpad readings & weekly practice exam questions were similar to 7A in terms of workload.

4. The practice midterm/final questions provided before each midterm/final were SO helpful. Definitely a must to perform well in the exams. For some reason, the professors never provide an answer key, but Campuswire is helpful in comparing answers among students.

5. Close to 0 extra-credit opportunities D:

6. Overall a decent course. Better than 7A in my opinion!