Professor Lavelle is a nice guy but not really a good professor. I had him for 14 A and 14 B and I got an A- in both. in order to do good on quizzes you must do all the problems assigned in the book. to succeed on the midterm and final, just do all the practice tests in the course reader. You gotta study A LOT but as long as you are about 10% above average you should be able to get an A-. Lectures are very very boring so for me it was just nap time. If you have time i suggest you go to as many discussion sections as possible. ask around to see who are the good TA's and go to their discussions (jennifer casey and xiaming and janie and rob tobolowsky are awesome TA's) and go their office hours if you have questions about any concepts or problems in the book. Not too bad. I didn't take AP chem in high school and I did good so there is no need to be scared just be prepared to work

Okay, so here's an evaluation for 14A an 14B coming from someone who's never taken ANY chemistry in his life ever (No regular chem/honors chem/AP Chem)

I had Lavelle very recently for 14A (Fall 2011) and 14B (Winter 2012). I ended up getting an A in 14A and an A- in 14B. According to a lot of the reviews here, I should have failed because "omg yu didnt takez teh ap chem lawl. ur soo gunna fail". I'll give you an honest evaluation of how to do well in this professor's class.

First off, 14A: The key to 14A is to read the book and take notes. Try reading the section that Lavelle is going to cover that day in class (it's only about 3-4 pages a day with lots of pictures--not too bad), and pay attention at his lectures. Sometimes he gives small extra examples here and there and trust me, it DOES help to pay attention. By reading the material beforehand, lecture only helps supplement what you're learning in class. In addition, try to get in the habit of doing the problem sets that he gives in his course reader, because you will notice that his midterms are very very similar to his problem sets. If you stay on top of them, I guarantee that the quizzes will be cake. Another thing to note is to note just "go through the steps" with certain kinds of problems. Actually understand WHY you're doing something. Ex: Why do we have to convert Torr's to bars for this problem to work? And last of all, the main way to do well on Lavelle's finals and midterms is to do all of the previous years' midterms that are located in the back of your course reader, IN A TIMELY MANNER. This means, start doing the practice tests maybe 1.5 weeks in advance so you can have enough time to ask questions, go to office hours, if needed. On his previous midterms and tests, bear in mind that the way to do well on "trick questions" is to simply pay attention and try to apply the method of problem solving from other questions to the one you are trying to solve. I ended up getting A's on both the midterm and final following this method.

Now onto 14B: This class is harder than 14A-- I'll be completely honest, due to the material. A lot of people on here complain that Lavelle is being unfair by giving a hard final, etc, but think of the reason for him doing so. Is he REALLY a sick twisted man that loves seeing pre-med kids drown in their tears, as they are plunged into the depths of oblivion? No. He's trying to do a favor for those people who actually stay on top of their work and don't try to take the easy way out of things. For 14B studying, as well as doing the same things that I mentioned in the 14A thing above, try going to the test bank before quizzes and getting a few quizzes from previous years. Traditionally, the first quiz is rather difficult compared to his other quizzes (which are written by the TA's, by the way), and the best way to prep for it is to do old quizzes in addition to your course reader problems sets. Yes, thermodynamics is filled with lots of equations here and there, so PLAN AHEAD.

To sum it all up, the way to succeed in 14A and 14B is to read the book, do the problem sets, and attend lecture, to clarify material. I can definitely say that I'm happy that I took Lavelle and that I truly do feel more prepared for 14C.

Overall, bear in mind that this is the most honest review and advice I could give, and that it's coming from someone that had absolutely no chemistry background in high school. A fair amount of effort is all it takes to do well in this class.

Well, I had Professor Lavelle for 14A and 14B.
If you've taken any chem in high school take him for 14A and give yourself the easiest science A. his tests are calculations and stuff so you shouldn't suffer.. just do the problems on a DAILY BASIS please GOD, i wish I had a time machine to go back and do that so I could change that B+ to an A-

HOWEVER,
for 14B avoid avoid AVOID this professor. He gets increasingly conceptual for some odd reason, and there's no longer a balance that if the midterm's tough, the final's easy. HIS TESTS ARE REALLY HARD FOR 14B take ANYONE ELSE but him.

Have fun, hopefully my advice helped you.

Personally, I liked Lavelle. A lot of people don't like his teaching style and find his class too difficult, but I thought he was pretty cool. Not an easy A by any means, but his accent is awesome! Don't be as afraid of him as some people make him out to be. I almost didn't take his class due to all the terrible and intimidating reviews, but he ended up being quite enjoyable. I even took him again for 14B!

Lavelle is not that bad professor. However, if you don't have AP chemistry background, it can be pretty hard to learn. Just do all homework questions and past midterms and finals. I did all homework questions and past midterms and finals and got A.

He was a decent enough teacher. I recommend not bringing the course reader to class and just taking notes. I had an A+ while I did that, but when I bought and started using the coursereader, my grades went down. Don't fall behind, because it was frustrating catching up. I didn't do any of the homework and still pulled in a B (including failing the final). For the quizzes, his practice quizzes were all the prep work I needed. I got a 91/110 for the midterm, once again, only doing practice quizzes, but on the final where there were no practice quizzes (I didn't do the practice finals), I completely screwed up and knocked my A down to a B. Don't tell yourself that the lecture's online and you'll watch it cause that's a lie and you know it.

This class is hard. If you don't have a good foundation for chemistry you will probably struggle. Jen was the only good TA this quarter that I found, and unfortunately I did not have her. I highly recommend going to the good TA's office hours for extra help. I honestly don't think Lavelle is a nice person. He actually laughed at a student's question once during lecture. He does give a lot of practice problems but they always seemed easier than the actual exam. He's very conceited and likes to make his education history well known.
Overall, it seemed like a lot of people who did well in chem in high school had a hard time in this class. I would recommend taking it with Scherry, I've heard it's much easier.

If you have a choice, choose Jennifer Casey as your TA. She is the best TA, who sincerely cares for students' success at UCLA. She has the quality of an excellent teacher.

First of all, his class is not hard.
Despite what people have been saying, you just need to master calculation based questions to earn good grades. Since he provides tremendous amount of practice problems, you shouldn't have any excuse. However,I have noticed that students struggle in this class because they lack foundation in chemistry, and short time to master all the materials adds to the stress. Therefore, preview the material and never get behind. Chem 14A is exactly similar to AP Chemistry. So, if you want to preview the material, you may buy AP review book(I recommend Princeton Review) or purchase Lavelle's course reader and the textbook.

Professor Lavelle is from South Africa and he has british accent. Although his lecture may be boring and his tone makes people fall asleep, he is organized and teaches the material fairly well.

I must be in the minority here, but I actually liked Lavelle. His course reader outlined all of the important things we needed to know with examples, the practice exams in the back of it were definitely useful it you took the time to work through most if not all of them, specially since he's repeated some problems over the years I've noticed. The accent also helps.

My TA was definitely helpful and provided us with plenty of extra review material and even went to far as to make a jeopardy game to help us review for the final. Some of my friends' TA's weren't so helpful though.

As far as difficulty is concerned, I'm a bit biased here. My AP Chem teacher prepared us amazingly well for the exam and made sure we knew the material inside and out. Based on that, 14A seemed like a lot of review and wasn't particularly challenging. However, several of the people I knew in this class either didn't have a good foundation in chemistry, or hadn't taken chemistry at all coming in, so I can definitely see where it could be frustrating. Lavelle assumes that everyone has a decent background in the subject and sometimes glosses over things, like the gas laws which he believed to be review and didn't even cover in lecture. A running count of every time he mentioned "high school chemistry" was kept, and I remember once the week total was over 15. Given that this is the beginning chemistry class, it's a bit odd that he didn't actually go over the fundamentals, instead he assigned a bunch of problems from the textbook before class even started that we needed to review which including some basic stoic, balancing equations, etc. I heard that Scherri took the time to go over the fundamentals, but the trade off is that he rushed through the actual material near the end of the quarter. If you've never taken chem though it'd probably be better to get a strong grasp of the basics first, in which case Scherri would probably be better if you want to actually be taught the material instead of doing it yourself.

VOH is incredibly helpful, and the problems he recommends do come in handy when you need to practice the method for a type of problem, like all of the titration problems. Some of them get ridiculous by the end, but I found that most of his actual problems weren't nearly as difficult as some in the book.