I took Lavelle for 14A and 14B my first 2 quarters at UCLA. First, I had never taken chemistry before...never took it in high school. So I was really nervous coming in and thought I was going to fail.

That being said, I actually sort of enjoyed this class (but I'm not the hugest fan of chem in general) and really liked Lavelle. He was straightforward and his lectures were organized and easy to understand. Yes his midterms and finals were hard, but its college chemistry at UCLA so what do you expect. If you put in the work and study it is not that difficult to get a good grade. He is a fair professor and offers a lot of help outside of class, with practice tests, office hours and review sessions. I feel like I learned a lot from his classes and I felt more confident and prepared going into the next quarters.

I got an A in his class both quarters and had never taken chemistry before this. He is a good professor and you'll definitely be prepared for the rest of the chem you have to take.

An amazing teacher. This class was easy. The tests were very basic. An easy A. Just read and you'll be fine.

14A with Lavelle was not as bad as what some of the reviews here made it seem. having no chemistry background, i managed to pull a B+ without ever completing the homework. i do regret not doing practice problems more because his tests are all calculations, and maybe (rarely) a conceptual problem.

Take home message: Do the practice problems AND practice midterms/finals and you should be fine.

He isn't as tough as everybody says he is.
His lectures can get kinda boring, but you can skip class and watch him on bruincast instead. As long as you do all the work he assigns and do all the practice tests in the course reader, you should be fine. I got an A-.
Oh, be sure to collaborate with people when you do the practice quizzes in the test booklet because then your practice quiz average can replace your lowest quiz score.

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Here are some quick tips:

- do the homework
- read the book and understand the concepts
- do all the quiz workbook problems and make sure you get a 40/40 to substitute your lowest quiz score
- the quizzes fuck you up if you aren't prepared and decide whether you get a B+ or an A-
- go to office hours and ask questions
- buy the solutions manual (helped me so much)
- midterm and final were straightforward

By doing all these things (except going to office hours), I was able to get an A- in this class. My friend who did well on the final and midterm (As) got a B+ in the class because she got fucked over by the quizzes. His lectures are boring as hell by the way. Good luck future chemistry students!

If you took AP Chem in high school (and did well), this class is a breeze. Lavelle webcasts his class, and he gives you midterms and finals from past years, which are very similar in difficulty to the midterm and final he will give you. The quizzes can be tricky depending who your TA is and how well he/she prepares you for the quiz. But there are plenty of office hours and practice problems that will allow you to master the material if you choose to utilize theme.

Great class to ease the transition from high school to college. I honestly did not do any of the HW except for the quiz workbooks, probably did not put as much effort into the class as I could have, and still wound up with an A.

Well, both the midterm and final are pretty fair. You have enough time to check answers at least once. HOWEVER, the quizzes are UNFAIR because TAs made all of them, which means people would have different quizzes depending on their discussion time. Quizzes for Thursday and Friday discussion are far more difficult than quizzes on Tuesday and Wednesday. My advice is that having earlier discussion if you can; but later discussions should also be fine if you do all the work and keep exceptions in mind.

Take the advices of the other student submitted evaluations here. We're not trying to fool you. I'm just here to post some numbers for you. For Fall 2012, the final average was 74% and the class average 75.6%. He curves the class, so getting these scores means getting a B-.