Contrary to what most people here are saying,Wright was excellent as an instructor. Yes, the tests can be hard but the quality of instruction matches up to the expected level of performance. I got an A plus on this class.
It helps to have past papers and other materials which I'm selling for $20.
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If you're interested in astronomy or need to take a lab for the science GE, DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS - there are easier or more interesting lab science options out there! I enrolled into this class thinking that it would be feasible and at least somewhat interesting but this class has been the most waste of time and not at all intellectually stimulating. I went to lecture for the first few lessons and just copied everything that was shown on the powerpoint which he posts online anyways, but it's pointless to go to lecture because he just reads off the slides and for the first ten or so minutes of class he talks about some random space things happening like oh at 3am today you can see this star like no one is going to wake up at 3am to look at that.
The only good part about this class is that there is no attendance and the answers for the reading quizzes can be found online. However, if you actually want to learn or have tests that truly test your knowledge and understand rather than remembering the most useless facts that you will never ever need to know for literally ANYTHING, then stay away from this class. Honestly I gave up after the first midterm when the class average was around a 65% for BOTH midterms and the final. I changed my grade to pass or no pass and ended up barely passing.

DO NOT EVER TAKE THIS CLASS
DO NOT EVER TAKE THIS CLASS

This class was supposed to be easy just by its textbook contents, but the professor makes it terribly difficult. I believe that 90% of the class try to memorize the whole textbook word by word (especially those numbers and tiny charts on the side notes),they still end up failing the midterms. Why? Because only one person gets an A in the both midterms, and I suppose that means something.
Most of the questions on the midterms and finals are trivial questions, and that means it has nothing to do with logic or understanding of the materials. I sincerely suggest that unless you are super interested in finding the diameter of the biggest asteroid and which spaceship landed on which planets, stay away from this professor!!!
OH,btw the textbook was $120 with the online access code!

HORRIBLE CLASS. DO NOT TAKE IT. (at least not with this professor!!!)

I received a B+ for this class and I studied my ass off! You literally have to read the whole damn textbook WORD FOR WORD to get a few answers right on the exams! I went to 3 classes before I realized GOING TO CLASS WAS POINTLESS. He reads off a slide that he posts online and doesn't even mention anything that will be in his midterms!

YOU ARE BETTER OFF READING THE BOOK THAN GOING TO LECTURE.

This class ruined my GPA and was not worth taking. Generally ASTRO 3 is supposed to be an easy GE! But it was made so much more complicated by Professor Wright.

Pre-lecture quizzes are almost all on Google.

Grading-
10% Pre-Lecture quizzes
20% Labs
20% Midterm #1
20% Midterm #2
30% Final

All Midterms and Final are multiple choice

I DO NOT RECOMEND IT.

Agreeing with the evaluation above: DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS. Repeat: DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS (unless you are pre-Astrophysics or have a lot of spare time).

The saddest part of this class was that the material was very interesting, but the professor completely killed any inkling of enjoyment by creating nearly impossible midterms. They were basically trivia tests; if you didn't read that sentence or skipped over that picture in the textbook, you were guaranteed to get the question wrong. The grading was terrible, with the average score in the mid-D range. No curve on those guys, just at the end of the quarter so you have no idea where you're going to land.

If you had questions, better not to ask them for fear of slowing the lecture down even further. Let's throw in cramming 3-4 chapters in two lecture sessions at the end of a unit (right before the midterm) because we were too slow in the preceding weeks. Attendance dropped sharply once people realized this guy only quotes his slides from the textbook; one was better off reading it instead of walking all the way to PAB.

Let's address the labs next. If you landed a chill TA, the grading was probably pretty sweet. If you had the misfortune of getting a hard TA (like me), labs were painful and took the entire two hours. Those little points I missed added up in the end. Other things like mandatory pre-lecture quizzes online made the class a hassle and thoroughly distasteful.

I got a solid B in the end (after a raw C-). The pain and torture of studying for this class was NOT worth it. I am a very good student and normally obtain straight A's. Though I am competing against others to get into law school, I would definitely not wish this abomination on my competition. No one deserves to suffer through this.

DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS. Unless you're a masochist.

DO NOT NOT NOT TAKE HIS CLASS.

I was incredibly disappointed by the instruction of this course. I find the course material to be very intriguing, although somehow Professor Wright found a way to make even the most interesting material bore me to death during lecture. He has no passion or excitement for the course material, and I found attending lecture to be pointless, as he would just restate the lecture slides word for word and monotonously. He did not once look like he was excited to be talking about the material or that it was interesting at all, so how are his students supposed to find excitement in the course if the instructor doesn't even do that? In all of my interactions with Professor Wright, he was condescending and generally uninterested. His communication skills are seriously lacking in that he talks completely around any question he is asked, giving mostly unrelated information and not answering the question asked. Also, his examinations were very unfair, I felt many of the questions asked were arbitrary, and irrelevant to the material that actually matters for Astronomy. For example, I remember one specifically that asked the time period and location of the Library of Alexandria. Why does the professor prefer I spend my time remembering useless information like this instead of actual facts about astronomy? Very, very disappointed in this class. Would not recommend it.