Professor Pires is dedicated and helpful. Even though the exams are tough, the Professor also offers extra credit to bump up our grade. Attendance isn't mandatory but Iclicker counts toward grade. Overall, this class is great. I didn't expect to get that grade (:

I took LS 7B in Spring 2020, where Dr. Pires taught with Dr. Pham, so a lot of the policies were adjusted due to current events. Dr. Pires was one of the most understanding professors. If you had any issues she would try and correct or help you to the best of her abilities.
This class consists of two midterms and a final. The midterms tested on information from the textbook and class so pay attention in lecture. Dr. Pires and Pham made the final optional but I'm sure the format is similar to other LS finals.
Overall, an easy course if you put in the effort to learn the information.

Granted this was online Zoom quarter of spring 2020, and all students were given full 200 points on the final. Deb Pires is a very good teacher. She really tries to make sure each student learns and understand the material and will go out of her way to help you with any questions. She definitely listens to her students concerns and is very supportive overall. Although the tests were difficult, LS7B is not that difficult if you study the material well enough. Her lectures are clear and interesting. Very passionate and nice lady highly recommend taking this class with Deb.

I honestly enjoyed having Deb as a professor more than I thought I would after initially reading some of these reviews. This quarter was unique because it was online, but Deb (along with Pham) was very accommodating and nice to her students. Both would hold extra office hours to make up for the suboptimal online learning environment, which I think was quite nice of them.
In terms of work/exams, LS 7B can definitely be a bit dry if evolution and ecology are not your thing. I definitely struggled more in 7B than in 7A, and thought the midterms for this class were hard. Midterm 1 was a time crunch and Midterm 2 had a lot of ambiguous questions that required some lucky guessing. Overall though, this class is pretty standard so it shouldn't matter much who your professor is.

During the class she would mess on up on her clickers and confuse people anymore. When people asked questions she wouldn't really answer them or like explain the process which made her seem even worse. Honestly, because the series is so standardized it doesn't matter what professor you have, but if you have the option of someone else might as well go with someone else.

After reading all the Bruinwalk reviews, I was quite dreading this class. Either Pires has gotten significantly better or y'all are just really bitter. Yes Launchpad/ clickers/ mandatory discussions/useless labs make the class annoying but Pires herself as an instructor is not even close to awful. She showed us entertaining videos, put a lot of cat pictures in her slides, and made jokes that were actually funny sometimes.
I did not have to work very hard for an A, all the points from participation/attendance really help your grade if you just do them and bear through discussion/"lab". The tests can be confusing in typical LS style but I barely studied (talking like 3 or 4 hours total over the entire quarter, mostly on the final) and did really well on them, biology is my best science but if its not yours then pay attention and actually study. Lots of people complain about how difficult the class is because they skip through Launchpad and talk during lecture.
The class is not as bad as people say... more tedious than anything else and Pires is a decent instructor.

It's the 7 series. Lectures don't matter, you have to teach yourself the material through launchpad and just practice. The tests aren't really anything like the PEQ's, and the Pedigree problems on midterm one were really tough. Pires isn't super lenient when it comes to unclear wording of midterm questions. Lowkey the 7 series just needs to chill out, they have such a stick up their butt.

I came into the class thinking that 7B would be very manageable. Turns out it was the complete opposite. Pires has a very condescending tone, and often would just start the clicker timers without telling the class, often not even trying to calm the class down. Her clicker questions were nothing compared to the difficulty of the midterms. The final seemed a bit more fair, but she had already wrecked all of us by then. 7B honestly ruined my view of ecology and genetics. I would avoid taking it with Pires if possible, but most likely you would have no choice. Just overstudy pedigrees and expect the midterms to be long and hard.

Everything the other reviews have said about Professor Pires and this class is still relevant. The material itself is not difficult, but the execution of her lectures and exams are awful. You can literally get by from only doing all the launchpad work and do well in the class, but participation is tracked by clicker points and is sadly required. Labs are also a requirement and just busywork. I also agree that midterms 1 and 2 are awful in their own way, and because Pires refuses to review her tests for mistakes or ask her TAs to check for her, the vagueness and probable misinterpretation of the test questions is just an added insult to injury.
However, Pires is somewhat lenient on the grading because although I mainly got B's on my tests, I still ended up with an A in the class. She also graciously offered to hold a review session for the final, but at 7AM and as a pretty useless Q&A session on simple test-taking strategies. If that doesn't tell you how little she cares if you succeed or not, then I don't know what else to tell you. Don't take the class with Pires if you can't help it.

I really disliked this class, which was surprising to me given what I heard going in. I decided to take Pires as she was rated hirer than Gilbert, the only alternative, bust was very disappointed in her and the class. Although the information and course content was fairly interesting and familiar to me based on my AP Bio experience, her teaching style, behavior, and class organization made the class a constant source of stress. The entire class lecture was mostly filled with clicker questions that were a challenging, but helpful source of exam preparation. However, every time we got to a difficult clicker question where over half the class got the answer wrong, Dr. Pires did not take the time to explain the correct and incorrect answers but rather ignored our confusion and continued ahead. This disregard for students was something I noticed throughout the course as Dr. Pires was rude and condescending toward student questions, something that was reflective in her office hours and review sessions being almost empty as they were not helpful at all. The first midterm was the most difficult of the three exams, all of which were redesigned this year and not seen by anyone but Dr. Pires. This made learning from my mistakes especially difficult as the TAs we reviewed the exams with often had little more ability to dissect the confusing and ambiguous questions than we did. The discussions themselves were a further waste of our time as we needlessly were required to show up in full PPE for two hours while we completed a worksheet that often did not help further my understanding of course content. The lack of autonomy given to TAs in these sections was a huge loss to students as my TA Mars was a such a great resource when we had the opportunity to ask questions and hear her go over concepts. I was further disappointed by the lack of transparency regarding how grades were distributed as well. Overall, I would not recommend taking this class with Pires, but if you do, the key to doing as well as I could at least for me was focusing on the CLC worksheets, clicker questions, TA office hours, and launchpad practice exam questions as those were the most helpful resources.