Overall okay class! Lavelle does teach basic concepts well in class but the hw and tests are often of a harder level. He does provide lots of resources though, so definitely make use of them and you should be fine. Selling past exams for practice! Contact schoolstuffs135@gmail.com if you’d like them :)

I did not take AP Chem like most people did in this class. The last time I took a chemistry class was sophomore year of high school, 4 years ago. So yeah this class was super hard for me, and I did not get the hang of his tests until the end. Lavelle is not that great of a lecturer, and I had to teach everything to myself (watch the organic chemistry tutor on youtube, that's the only reason I passed this class). His tests are super ambiguous and sometimes you're just like wtf is he asking. Like for the final there were random fill in the blanks which could've had a 100 different answers. I know that if I took ap chem I definitely would've done better, so if you have a strong chem background, you should be fine. Be prepared to study your ass off for this class! The good thing is you only need 50% of the points to get a C-, but there's no curve.

I'm going give you guys a no BS review of Dr. Lavelle unlike the other reviews made here just to sell past exams which btw don't help, because Lavelle changes everything every quarter.

First and foremost, Lavelle's class is a hit or miss which is what I hated the most. Literally luck is 40% of the class. Our midterm was so fucked in terms of content distribution compared to the 2019 midterm. On the corollary our small 50 point tests were much easier. And finally COVID-19 saved us from his brutal paper final and inflated our averages. I believe the class median grade was a B+ to an A minus.

Now on to luck some TA's will be lenient with small mistakes some won't. And remember every point counts. If a TA took of too many points call them out or ask for a regrade. This is a total point system and Lavelle never curves. You need a 465/500 to get an A period!!!!! Midterm is 120 pt. Homework is 50. His chem community posts are 50. 180 pt final and two 50 pt tests. Tests are a joke but don't make silly mistakes. I fucked a quadratic equation in an ice table and got a 47/50. My total score was a 464/500, bt thankfully I argued a point from an old test and brought it up to a 465/500

This class isn't hard, but every point matters and write as much bs on a test as you can. From equations to anything just to pick up partial credit.

This class is an easy to get an A- you just ned a 450/500. Getting an A requires more luck and effort and pray Dr. Lavelle writes a fair test the quarter you are taking it.

Finally, do the fucking homework like you are reading the Bible. Lavelle puts a good chunk of homework problems on the midterm and final which are like 15 points each!!!

Lavelle is a good prof in general compared to the other ones for 14A and 14B. He doesn't expect you to know anything from hs and he doesn't pit students against each other by using bad grading systems.

If you give just one shit getting an A- isn't bad and if you try a little you can get an A

A lot of people are going to tell you how difficult this class is, but truth is they are absolutely wrong. Lavelle is honestly one of the easiest and most helpful professors I've ever had, and he really does take the extra mile to ensure his students succeed -- with boundless TA, UA, and prof office hours, coupled with his "Step-Up" program for struggling students, if you really want to succeed in this class (and you take the initiative to do so) it is more than practical. Lavelle's course is so well structured and there are no tricks/hidden gimics on any of his tests, midterms, or finals. One of the biggest suggestions I have if you take Lavelle (which you really should) is to do the homework (actually do it, trust). I started off doing all the homework problems for tests 1 and 2, and then by the third I started slackin on the homework problems just because I really understood chemistry and was getting pretty good grades; then, on the midterm, he literally puts a 15 point quest (out of 100 points) DIRECTLY (word-for-word, number-for-number) out of the textbook applied/integrative exercises section, and it was actually pretty hard so I lost a significant number of points there. But legit, if you put in the effort and take initiative, Lavelle's gonna be your best friend, and you'll most certainly get an A or A+ in this class. :) TAKE LAVELLE, HE'S DOPE!!

I took this class Fall quarter of 2020 on the online format and had a terrible experience. Lavelle's lectures are clear but boring and he talks really slow. But that's not even relevant. The material feels easy/manageable during lecture and the sapling assignments. In fact, you feel like you actually understand the material! But the tests are literally the hardest tests I've ever taken. Lavelle came out and said he wrote the final to be too hard and he curved it. Still only raised my F to a D, though. Anyway, he provides a lot of study sessions with TA and LAs so definitely attend those, especially workshops. Set-ups are pretty rudimentary and not helpful for tests because the tests are anything but rudimentary. It's a shame Lavelle has been teaching here for decades and yet still thinks treating Chem 14A as a weeder is a good way to inspire undergrads, especially freshmen. He's (part of) the reason I gave up on becoming a doctor :)

I despised this class so much. After I breezed through Chem 14A with Lavelle himself, I went into 14B confident that I could do well, but this class reaaaally frustrated me.
The lectures, just like 14A, were quite dry and I just copied notes straight from his slides. Most of the lectures were just deriving formulas that we were already given on tests. In hopes of actually understanding material, I went through the textbook, but the textbook is quite wordy so that wasn't too helpful.
The most frustrating part of this class was the TERRIBLE tests. I had access to last year's tests and ours were significantly harder. He would pull random conceptual questions about things we didn't cover in class, weren't in homework, or were barely linked to the topic at hand. I had MANY points taken off solely for sigfigs or small calculation errors. He would put questions that were worded weirdly just to throw us off, so read the questions carefully!
I pulled through in the final, because two of the challenging questions (adding up to ~30 points of the 200 point test) were WORD for WORD from the homework which I had done the day before the final. So make sure you 1) do the homework and 2) go to the LA review sessions. Good luck!

f

TLDR: At best average, I wasn't a fan, he is overhyped and thinks too much of himself

I don't get the hype for Professor Lavelle. He is one of the worst professors in general that I've had. His lectures are rather boring and not helpful since he spends most of it deriving formulas instead of giving intuitive explanations or going over problems or even relating them to the world. The class is paced extremely slowly at the beginning but then speeds up near the end which is problematic since the beginning is a lot of review or material that is closely related to 14A. Thus material that is somewhat more manageable is dragged on over while new material is pushed through quickly. The largest problem with Professor Lavelle though is the tests. The material tends to be unclear and there are numerous curveball questions designed to stymie students. While the common claim is that it's there to separate the A's from B's, it tends to separate the A's from C's since partial credit is only given only for numerically correct steps. If your method is correct but you carry over a mistake or made a computational error, no partial credit is awarded for the work. One person read the problem wrong and solved using the wrong value with the correct method and received 0 credit. In addition, the TAs have a large influence on your grade since they grade the tests and are the ones you have to go to to try to get back partial credit. During tests, two of the TAs proctored a room and there was a question that was unsolvable without an outside number which they gave. However, the other room with the other 2 TAs refused to give out the number until the last ten minutes when it was extremely clear the value was required.

Although I got a C in this class, Dr. Lavelle is a great lecturer, and a caring professor. His class is definitely challenging, and you have to do every single homework assignment and you basically have to master the concepts Lavelle teaches you like you're the freaking avatar. What I really liked about him was that he was passionate about helping students by setting up lots of review sessions, whether it's led by a TA or a UA. He does 2 exams during discussion, one midterm, and a final. I got a 90% on the first exam and everything went downhill from there haha. What I thought was unfair was that he'll make sure that his midterm and final conceptually harder than his exams and assigned homework problems. Dr. Lavelle is known for including problems on exams that are from his lectures (which are not on bruincast) and not mentioned in the homework at all. For example, on his second exam, he included a problem that asked for the difference in the number of H bonding sites in DNA between AT and GC strands (i forgot how it was formatted but it was about DNA), and my TA said that Dr. Lavelle talked about DNA during lecture, and on the final, the last question was about titration, which is not even part of the 14A curriculum at all, and he didn't assign any problems for us to practice on. Advice that I wish I should've taken: don't procrastinate on the homework problems & don't rely on the solutions manual to give you the answer instead of working it out for yourself because actually learning will help you in the long run.

This professor is very clear and good at explaining. There is barely any mandatory class homework. However, for this class you really have to put in a lot of work yourself if you don't have a strong chemistry background. The tests are very similar to the textbook problems so I suggest even if it is not mandatory to do all of the textbook problems. The lectures are asynchronous which is nice but make sure to stay on top of watching them and take notes of everything. The hardest part about it being online is that the tests are multiple choice and short so if you miss more than one question you are already at a B. Tests are also proctored on zoom with your TA. Although you need to put a lot of work into this class it is very rewarding. There are also tons and tons of resources if you are confused on anything.