I also feel like the past reviews on bruinwalk make this class seem easier than it is. I am still waiting for my final grade, but I am hovering around a B+ or an A- depending on how I did on the final...hoping and praying for that A- ya'll. Anyway with that being said, I feel like if I don't write a review now I never will - so I am going to try and brain dump everything I know about this class and the exams/any tips to help anyone who wants to take this class to succeed.

I took 16 units this quarter and that definitely didn't make things easy either. However, this class by far was the class I devoted the majority of my time to. The chapters are pretty dense. I felt like I did better with the exams when I reread the chapters personally. The first exam was by far the easiest so make sure you do well on it!! The second exam was a lot harder and there was a lot of material, definitely do not try and cram for that exam and make sure you study a week in advance for it at the least because it is a lot. The third exam I thought was easier, but I also studied more for it this time so that could be why. There were some really tricky and weirdly worded out questions too though, so I don't really agree with the last reviewer who said that there aren't tricky questions - there are and they are designed to kind of make you second guess yourself which sucks, so keep that in mind and make sure you understand EVERYTHING.

Now as for study tips...the first exam I would say is more memorization based on the slides, but there are applied questions as well where you have to understand the material. The second exam had a lot of tricky questions based on the substance abuse lecture, so make sure you know that lecture WELL because it is one of the most difficult. There was also some stuff that was brought up in the lecture that came up in the exam that wasn't in the slides or the book - so make sure you listen to the podcasts carefully and pay attention and type it out/write it out. The way I studied for the exams was to make flashcards, listen to the podcasts with the slides in front of me, and going over the slides and explaining things over to myself, as well as making tests for myself to make sure I memorized/understood key tricky things that would show up. Remember that with this class the hardest questions are going to be the ones you wouldn't think would show up - think specific nitpicky stuff, so you really have to know everything inside and out to ensure a good grade. I personally wouldn't skip class because Professor Chavira does kind of get through the slides pretty fast and sometimes the lectures seem rushed because she wants to get through all the material, so I would say definitely try to go to lecture and then relisten to the podcasts. I know someone who never went to class, but they still had to relisten to the podcasts twice, so why not just go to class and avoid all of that? Also, I would try and go to office hours before the exam as the TA's get to see the exam and they know information about it. I personally didn't go, but I am sure it was helpful for those who did.

As for the discussion section...it did not help at all with the exams whatsoever. I don't know what it is about discussion sections at UCLA for psych not having a form of review for the material. I have never experienced this with any classes that haven't been for psych. The readings and class discussions were interesting, but 0 review time for the exams whatsoever.

Overall, take this class seriously. It is not as easy as people have said on here. There are really no "easy" classes at UCLA anyway. But again, I took 16 units this quarter and this class was the one I devoted the majority of my time to. I studied for it every single day and still am not sure if I got away with an A-. If you can't handle the amount of reading and studying you are going to do with this class, I would go with another class. The material is very interesting, but if you care more about your grade and your time - I think the best bet is to take another class.

The material was very interesting, I just didn't like how heavy the readings were. And the discussion section didn't do too good of a job tying together what we learned in class. If you're a good/fast reader, I recommend taking this course, but if not (like me) I would proceed with caution. Overall, Chavira is a very good professor, her voice is very soothing. I also had the sweetest TA for this class, so she has good taste in people too lol. SELLING THE TEXTBOOK (abnormal psych Pearson, 17th edition) FOR 55$! email: ************* for more info