Graded based on:
100 clicker points (same scheme as described by another reviewer)
75 points Midterm 1
75 points Midterm 2
150 points Final
30 points weekly discussion worksheets (mainly completion)
60 points quizzes (one 20-point quiz, four 10-point quizzes)
2-4 (?) extra credit points given for answering surveys

Opportunity to REPLACE (NOT extra credit) part of your midterm score with your group exam score. Essentially for this to even matter you actually have to do quite bad on your individual portion and quite well on the group exam. In this case it will give you an extra few points. Basically, you take your exam score, subtract 10%, and then add in your higher group exam score (up to 10% if you get 10/10.)

God, I didn't mind Dr. Tienson-Tseng for Chem 153A (had her Fall 2018) but I'll say it. She really wore me down and has started to kill my previously enormous enthusiasm for biochem. The first 5 weeks of this course felt like an entirely different course from the last 5 weeks of the course. We took midterm 1 and our class did really well (exam 1 average of 84%) and she put us through hell for both our midterm 2 and final afterward.

I literally got 100% (100 point exam scaled down to 75 points, so 75/75) on the first exam. Like yes, I did think it could have been more difficult but I thought I would be able to handle whatever she did to try to make it more difficult for exam 2. But the time limitations on exam 2 were extreme, and our exam 2 average was a fat ~50% (~38/75). She said she recognized this issue and would attempt to consider it for the final, but the final also verged on being too long, though the difficulty was scaled back a bit. Average for this was ~72.6% (109/150).

The depression that set in post-midterm 2 was so bad that I could barely motivate myself to study for the SUNDAY final, mind you. Never in my life have I just cared so little about an exam because I knew it would f*ck me up the ass no matter what I did and I just hated her mediocre lecturing. This woman pauses for unnaturally long periods of time and then she'll look at her notes or suddenly recall everything and then word vomit out the rest of what she needs to say and it becomes far less comprehensible this way. The need to meticulously review Bruincasts is huge. Prepare yourself to go over them in great detail to be able to figure out what's important for exams, since there's this Tienson effect of going back to watch the Bruincast and not only learning things you missed but realizing there were things you didn't even KNOW you missed because of how she suddenly speaks so fast out of no where. It's appalling.

Look man, I used to respect Dr. Tienson-Tseng, LIKE HER. But I am tired. I am weary. At this point, I expect better. Her poorly worded questions and INTENTIONAL vagueness and her stubbornness sometimes about how "there's only one way to interpret this" when there really isn't and empirical evidence shows otherwise.

It never feels good to leave an exam feeling like you didn't even have the chance to attempt 33-50% of the questions. Exams are not an accurate measure of knowledge/skill. Compensating with tons of clicker points (worth more than a midterm) and buffer points doesn't make it better.

I feel like it's miraculous I ended up with an A. I am grateful but I absolutely cannot find it in myself to say something particularly nice about Dr. Tienson-Tseng at this point. Take her with caution. The flip side is that she does Bruincast, she is receptive to questions in class, she's not entirely unreasonable, and she definitely doesn't screw you over entirely with her grades in the end but the pain I suffered in this class was not worth it.

God, I really can't believe how night/day this class was after the second midterm in particular. I had nothing but great things to say about the class up until then, but if I ever have to take a Tienson exam again ... my god. She's just average in so many ways with often frustrating exams... It's either you take her with chem 153B being one of your only more difficult classes in the quarter or just suffer while managing multiple difficult classes. In the 153 series it really isn't supposed to be the bad one, and I genuinely didn't spend that much time until the last half of the class but STILL. UGHHHHH. Glad to be done with this.

My grade for when I took the class was determined by:

Midterm 1 (75), Midterm 2 (75), and the Final Exam (150)
Clicker Questions (100)
Quizzes (90)
Discussion Worksheets (30)
BS assignments (10-30)
~550 points

There were 2 sources of extra credit: Group exams (15 points possible) and class surveys/evaluations (like 4 points?).

Clicker Questions: get 66.7% of the questions correct and participate in 100% of them to get 100 points. You only need 75% of the total clicker points available to get 100/100 (it's scaled that way). These questions will make up more than a midterm grade, hallelujah.

Exams divided into parts A and B.
Part A: 4-5 questions (9-10 questions for the final) with subparts like a, b, c, d,...that count for a total of 40 points for Midterm 1 and 2, and 80 points for the Final.

Part B: 4-5 questions (9-10 questions for the Final) with subparts like a, b, c, d,...that count for a total of 35 points for Midterm 1 and 2, and 70 points for the Final.

You have to get 100% on part A and 75% on part B to not miss any points on the exams (yes, this is how she scales both parts). Part B is usually harder than part A hence the scaling, but if you shotgun part B you may end up with a higher score than sniping down one or a few questions.

Exam 1 Average: 61%, Exam 2 Average: 60%, Final Average: 75%.

A note about the group exam: she took our group exam scores (which usually is one or two problems from their respective Exams), divided them by 2 and added those points as extra credit to our grade. Total possible points on the group exams: 10 each, meaning you can get a possible 5 points extra credit per group exam. There is 1 for each exam: Midterm 1, Midterm 2, and the Final. The Final group exam will take 1 hour and 15 minutes and it is right AFTER your Final exam, so you should account for the Final Exam times when choosing your classes or you may have to talk with your professors to compromise.

My two cents: This class sucks.